The new UCP government’s plans to spend tens of millions of tax dollars on a pro-oil “energy war room” is pure political grandstanding that represents nothing more than a monumental misallocation of public funds.
Somehow, I doubt massively profitable multi-billion-dollar oil corporations need Kenney’s government to defend their interests at the expense of our already exceedingly limited tax dollars. The last thing Albertans need is more corporate welfare for a heavily subsidized industry that has among the most funded and influential lobbying power in the country, if not world.
The tens of billions in foreign investment to our oil and gas sector in 2017 alone by comparison makes the millions distributed to NGOs over the span of about a decade seem like an infinitesimal drop in the bucket.
Wasting 30 million of our collective dollars on an industry with an already powerful lobby funded by billion-dollar interests is to my mind nothing less than an egregious affront, especially considering how badly other government departments and agencies could use an injection of funding.
The fact that Canada’s oil sector has the most influential lobbying power in the country is easily verifiable; the industry exchanges more correspondence and has more contacts in government than even banking, mining, manufacturing and agriculture.
With the dauntingly mounting multi-billion-dollar cost of cleaning up abandoned wells and pipelines that continues to be neglected and could well eventually fall on the taxpayers’ shoulders, one can safely assert those lobbying efforts have paid off in spades. The industry does not need more corporate welfare.
We’re talking about tens of millions of dollars that could — nay, should — be invested in education, health care, infrastructure, environmental conservation, economic diversification, or even labour training and adaptation to prepare for a transitioning global economy. Instead, these desperately needed dollars will be flushed down the drain to support one of the world’s most profitable industries.
So much for the UCP’s claim to be fiscally conservative. It is extremely doubtful that the fiscal case can convincingly be made that we will be able to measurably observe a worthwhile return on our $30 million “investment.” Let’s be honest with ourselves — just like the impending carbon tax court battles, this will be money wasted. Not that the lawyers will mind of course.
Meanwhile, nurses have been told to wait for a financial review before arbitration on their salaries will continue. But naturally, no financial review proving the worth of the so-called energy war room, not to mention impending corporate tax cuts, will be called for, despite decades of data that clearly indicate trickle-down economic policies succeed only at increasing wealth inequality.
If any further freezes or possibly even cuts are expected of our educators and medical professionals, perhaps Kenney’s party should lead the charge by example and immediately roll back their own MLA salaries, which are already among the country’s best compensated, far above the average Canadian’s income.
Perhaps Martin Luther King Jr. said it best, “This country has socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor.”
Although his comment was of course referring to the U.S., the statement easily applies in our case as well, and Albertans deserve better.
