If Canada is ‘Oil Rich’ Why are We So in Debt?from the narwhal
old but interesting article
If Canada is ‘Oil Rich’ Why are We So in Debt? so we not only dont benefit from our oil ressource,.we even have to bail this industry out when oil prices are low and they lose money ? .economy is all plitics nothing else .
ask more royalties for canadians
and start
a Government sovereign wealth fund like in norway to promote social responsible programs .
lets reap the benefits of the oil sands like we should .maybe they will stop promoting it so much when all the profits of oil production went straight to the pockets of the canadians to use it as they see fit .
any way the grip of oil magnates on the world economy is slipping .
good thing .
The Canadian government does not charge a royalty on the profits of oil companies operating in the Alberta tar sands, only the Alberta provincial government does. In 2009, the Alberta government collected more in gambling and casino revenue than it did in royalties from oil companies.
In recent years, the Alberta government has been collecting roughly a five to ten-percent royalty from oil companies operating in the tar sands (the calculations, as you can imagine, are complicated, but this appears a safe estimate). Author and tar sands expert, Andrew Nikiforuk, writing in the Tyee, provides a much more in-depth look at the numbers if you're interested.
Suffice it to say, Canadians are not getting the returns they deserve for the risks they are inheriting. Companies like ExxonMobil, who last year made an estimated $104 million a day from global operations, get to extract oil from Canada's tar sands and sell it off to foreign interests, while Canadians get little more than the resulting climate change pollution and massive toxic lakes of sludge that seep into our freshwater reserves.
Great deal if you're ExxonMobil. Bum deal for Canadians. But the answer seems pretty simple – charge the oil companies way more for the right to extract and sell our country's oil. Politicians, of course, will tell you it's much more complicated than that.
But trust me, it isn't. Norway did it and the oil companies are still there. And, in fact, they are investing more than