Letter: For someone who hated Alberta, he sure left it with a nice long-term gift
By Letter to the Editor on January 15, 2025.
Dear editor, A quick quiz: Ladies and gentlemen, who among you can name the person responsible, from May 1, 2024 onwards several decades into the future, for an additional $15 billion/year ($1.25 billion/month) earned by Alberta’s oil industry? This person took a chance, several years ago, and spent $34 billion of our public money to buy and to develop an opportunity which private enterprise abandoned. Perhaps you recall a recent Medicine Hat News article (Nov. 26) stating that Alberta’s oil production has reached “… all-time record levels…” because the $34 billion this person spent has resulted in an additional 590,000 barrels of oil per day are being sold out of Alberta. At a price of $70/barrel (within the recent price range the last few weeks) an extra $15 billion/year is going into Alberta’s economy. All Albertans, and particularly those “diplomats” displaying their crude, tasteless “frac Trudeau” flags and bumper stickers, should thank Mr. Trudeau for giving our provincial economy a long- term boost unequalled by anything ever done by Messrs. Harper and Poilievre, by Mr. Kenney, or by Ms. Smith. When the “multiplier effect,” which economists apply to new dollars spent into the economy, is considered, the annual impact of the $15 billion is considerably greater. All of this from a leader and his government always out to disadvantage Alberta and from whom Alberta never gets fair treatment, nor enough. If your job, or the job of someone you know is in the oil and gas industry, or is connected to it, how will the extra $1.25 billion per month affect that job? Here’s a clue for you “diplomats”: don’t look to Pierre (Axe the Facts) Brokenitis to tell you the answer, because nothing in Canada works properly, everything is broken and it is all the fault of Justin Trudeau. Yours truly, Gregory R. Côté Irvine 11-10
It’s no secret to those of us from the world of finance with ties to the oil industry that if these Reformers , pretending they were conservatives, hadn’t destroyed Lougheed’s oil royalties and Corporate Tax structures we be rich like Norway and Alaska but instead Albertans let Klein and Stelmach put us in financial ruin and it’s growing. We estimate that Albertans have lost $1 trillion and oilmen agree.
One retired oil executive recently told some of us it’s more like $1.2 trillion. This article proves why “ Royalties Down 32% Billions in Federal Revenue Lost”.
Still getting paid by the word, eh, Al?