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The Alberta government is lowering royalty rates for the gas and oil industry. It is a bold initiative, that will bring jobs, prosperity and pink frakking Unicorns back to our lovely province. Apparently the old royalty review was just too darn hard on the industry.
Douche-Nozzle and Premier of Oilberta
We have just spent the last year and a half recovering from the last bout of fiscal looting and pillaging brought on by the business class so it is right about time to lower government revenue because we need less money, not more, to fund out starving public sector. Great Scott we need to close a few more schools and hospitals as right now we are falling behind in the race to the bottom.
The paucity of morals and commitment to the people of Alberta is vomit-worthy. Honestly, could the kowtowing and subservience to the Oil Patch be any more blatant? This is not even the right question.
The million dollar question is will people actually give a flying flaming hoop about how they are being sold down the river by our government and will they care enough to vote the PC’s out of office?
Oh, by the way the competition review was written by the Gas and Oil Industry. Certainly a fair shake for all Albertans. If you read closely you can actually hear the smirk and audacious tone Mr.Collyer uses.
Dave Collyer, head of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers:
“I think it was a significant step forward in restoring investor confidence in Alberta and I think that makes it a good day for not just the industry but for Albertans. This is really about getting investment back into the province, getting Alberta back in the game and that creates activity and that drives jobs and that’s good for the province overall. So I think it was a positive announcement in both tone and substance. So we’re encouraged by it but we’ve got a ways to go yet in terms of getting the industry fully back on its feet.”
Contrast this with what Amy Taylor has to say from the Pembina Institute:
Amy Taylor, senior economist with the Pembina Institute:
“First and foremost, we have concerns with the process that the provincial government embarked upon in which they came to the conclusion that they needed to make adjustments to the royalty scheme applicable to oil and gas in Alberta and more specifically, they made that decision based on conversations and meetings and negotiations that they had over the course of the last several months with industry and industry alone. And we’re talking about a resource that is owned by Albertans. The citizens of this province own the resource and it’s imperative in our opinion that they be consulted when these kind of changes are being considered.”
Transparency and the interests of the people of Alberta have always been low on Ed Stelmach’s list of things to do, but this is just outright pillaging. And for what? Because the Wild Rose Fascists are undermining the government from the Right? You bet it is. Albertans are getting a dry splintery broomstick in the anus, in regards to resource royalties, because the quavering lick-spittle progressive conservatives are afraid of alienating their ‘base’ and will not stand up for the peoples’ interests.
The people of Alberta need to put a stop to these shenanigans, the sooner the better.
Let’s Dial the Way-Back machine to September 18th, 2007. Alberta’s Royalty review was released for all to see and read. The contents of the report indicated that we as Albertans’ were getting a raw deal on the Royalties being extracted by the various private energy companies that had taken up residence in Alberta’s Tar Sands. See the whole document here. (Catch a critique of the Royalty Review here) This is from page 7 of the Executive Summary.
“Albertans do not receive their fair share from energy development. The royalty rates and formulas have not kept pace with changes in the resource base and world energy markets. Albertans’ own the resource. The onus is on their government to re-balance the royalty and tax system so that a fair share is collected. This must be done within an equitable and flexible administrative framework that maintains Alberta’s competitive edge for energy investment.
The total government take (Alberta and Canada, taxes and royalties) can be increased with Alberta still remaining an attractive investment destination. The Alberta Royalty Review Panel recommends that the total take for the energy sector be increased by sector, as shown in this table.”
Current Sharing Recommended Sharing
| Current | Sharing | Recommended | Sharing | |
| Albertans’ Share | Developers’Share | Albertans’ Share | Developers’ Share | |
| Oil Sands | 47% | 53% | 64% | 36% |
| Conventional Oil | 44% | 56% | 49% | 51% |
| Natural Gas | 58% | 42% | 63% | 37% |
Okay, nothing unreasonable going on here. Consider Norway or even Alaska for successful royalty planning. Comparatively speaking, Robert Sheppard in his Reality Check article says: “Norway’s technique seems to be to throw virtually everything it gets from offshore oil into the fund and to try to live off the cream. Alberta’s has been to live off its royalties and, if there’s any cream left over, toss some of it into the fund.”
The Results?
In 2004 the Alberta Heritage Trust Fund stood at 12.4 billion.
In 2004 Norway’s Petroleum Fund was valued at 133 billion.
Way to go Alberta Tories. Squandering our money seems to be the mission possible of the day or more succinctly, preserving the profits of the heroic oil companies that rape our land. Of course when we hear it from our rightist lapdog media in Alberta, the Royalty Review is virtually proposing the absolute destruction of the energy industry forever and ever. Which of course, is utter horsepucky, but not particularly surprising considering how politically addled we are as a province. But really, I needed to tell you about this story tell you about this one.
Alberta Health Services CEO and president Stephen Duckett speaks to reporters Wednesday in Edmonton. (CBC)
Alberta will move hundreds of hospital patients to newly created community-based spaces over the next three years, the provincial health authority confirmed Wednesday.
Alberta Health Services told union representatives on Tuesday that 350 hospital beds in Calgary and Edmonton will be closed and patients moved to 775 community-based spaces.
The province has now confirmed the breakdown of bed closures in the two cities — 160 in Edmonton and 190 in Calgary. Of those beds, 20 in Edmonton and 40 in Calgary will be kept open this year to help with what officials called “emergency room pressures.”
The government also revealed that 246 beds will be closed at Alberta Hospital over the next three years. {…}
Do you think possibly that maybe if we had decided to actually get a reasonable amount of return for the resources we have in Alberta would we have to be closing acute care beds? If the Alberta Government did not actually have the the Oil Patches procreating member lodged firmly in its posterior we might be able to pay for the necessary Health Care of the citizens of Alberta.
So what does the enraged populace of Alberta do?? Do we march on the parliament buildings to protect our healthcare? Do we write our MP’s angry letters? Do we say to ourselves maybe we should elect a viable opposition to the government? HELL NO!! We elect Paul Hinman of the Wild Fraking Rose Party of Alberta in a by-election to show our displeasure. The Wild Rose Party is batshite-crazy further to the right than the current Alberta Tories. Make sure you check out their platform; or more succinctly, imagine every wrongheaded neo-liberal fascist clusterfrack policy debacle… their platform gives a wild-eyed thumbs up to them all.
The crazy is strong here today, and I am not liking it.
Well, Bill 44 has been passed into law.
What is Bill 44? Bill 44 is the ‘parental rights’ legislation that stipulates that parents have the right to pull their children out of contentious classroom situations. Topics such as Human Sexuality, Religion and Evolution have been mentioned as possible situations.
Bill 44 or “The Right to Remain Ignorant” bill has been postponed in its implementation. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reports that the culture minister Lindsay Blackett has delayed the legislation for some more fine tuning to allow the schools to as he puts it: “Our intention is certainly not to get school boards before the Human Rights Commission.”
Intentionally or not this legislation allows teachers to be brought before a HRC tribunal when discussion such controversial topics such as evolution and sexual education are included in a lesson without parental approval.
This is a gross neglect of public education in Alberta. I’ve already written about Bill 44 here when this particular travesty of Bill came out. I am hoping that the Alberta Government have realized the magnitude of the stupid (stupid burning so bright that it made it a mark on PZ Myers’s blog Pharyngula) that is in this bill and working to neuter it as quickly as possible.
Given the lovely conservative nature of the politics in this province, I highly doubt any significant revisions will be made.
Newsflash: Deregulation does nothing except help the energy suppliers. Consumers are generally out of luck and almost always get the short end of the stick.
The Conservatives in Alberta have deregulated the power distribution system. Has the market pushed down prices? NO. Alberta energy prices are some of the highest in the country. I am not sure how many times this has been said, then patently ignored by the alberta tories. Deregulation hurts consumers.
The Edmonton Journal occasionally squeaks its disapprobation at the most ludicrous government policy. For once they got it right…read the whole article below the fold. I’d link the article itself, but the Journal insists on some digital PDF nonsense.
Former chief consumer advocate
speaks out
Energy contracts shopped doorto-door in Alberta are a “ripoff” because consumers are being charged too much for electricity and natural gas, and have to spend hundreds of dollars to get out of them, a former official with the Utilities Consumer Advocate says.
David Gray, who last month stepped down from his post as the agency’s executive director, said Monday only 30 per cent of the province’s one million retail electricity consumers have switched to contracts.
“The biggest number of complaints we had at the Utilities Consumer Advocate were from people pressured into a contract at their door … and realizing after they got their bill what happened to them. Instead of saving money, their bills went up considerably, and if they wanted to cancel their contracts, they faced enormous penalties.”
One cannot teach biology without teaching evolution. It would be like trying to teach physical education, with no running allowed. Our enlightened government though is going to put that assertion to the test. This bill was put forward with the publically stated intention of enshrining the protection same sex couples. In reality, Bill 44 gives parents the option to remove their children from any course material that contains sexual or religious content. Furthermore, teachers must notify parents in writing when such a contentious issue will be discussed in class. (Thankfully the amended bill allows for unplanned anecdotal mentions of religion and sexuality).
What is wrong with Bill 44 is the unconscious reinforcement of the heterogendered ideal.
Homosexuality is just as normal as heterosexual behaviour in nature. It just seems that the alleged creator (see also the magic sky fairy) of the entire UNIVERSE has real problems with whom and how we have intimate relationships with. It says so in the same book that slavery is great and contends unabashedly that pi is 3. (Three cheers for biblical accuracy and morality!) If you wish to arm your children with 2000 year old “wisdom” please, be my guest (feel free to not believe in germ theory as well). Just do not expect your delusions to be catered to in the public secular school system. There are many religious schooling options available to addle your children with mystical buffoonery.
There is not a ‘happy medium’ when in comes to the evolution/creation debate. We must not equivocate when it comes to rational thought versus religious codswallop. If we are to teach fact, then we must teach evolution. If we want to teach myth then we can look to religion. The two topics have nothing to do with each other and vary on the key point that one is based on testable, proven fact; the other on the stories that semi-literate shepherds cooked up in the hot sun of the Middle East 2000 years ago.
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