We’re in a climate crisis. So why did the B.C. government give oil and gas companies $663 million in subsidies last year so they would produce more fracked natural gas?
So asks veteran BC journalist Paul Willcocks at The Tyee. He notes the BC government is:
not offering any answers on why it’s necessary, how the taxpayer subsidy is justified or the conflict between claiming to want to reduce emissions while making it cheaper to produce polluting natural gas.
Based on an Auditor General estimate of 10,000 BC jobs, Paul Willcocks calculated this year’s subsidy works out to about $63,000 per job.
But, the employment subsidy is even worse than suggested. The Auditor General’s comment about 10,000 jobs in oil and gas is a generous round-up. Stats Canada reports that in 2018, BC had 20,800 jobs in mining, 4,200 jobs in oil and gas extraction, and 7,800 in “Support Activities for Mining and Oil and Gas Extraction”.
Take 4,200 oil & gas extraction jobs, add 20% of the support positions and that suggests 5,775 jobs were provided by the petroleum and natural gas extraction business.
Including royalty reduction credits accrued, each of those 5,775 jobs costs over $115,000—and that’s without counting administrative, social and environmental costs.
It is not just royalty reduction programs that caused provincial revenues to crash. The energy ministry has followed a comprehensive program of reducing the public benefit from petroleum and natural gas production.
Government has been more successful in implementing this policy than any other. Read through this category for more information.
Let us examine 20 years of gas production against 20 years of revenue.
Categories: Methane Gas
in-sights.ca 
Imagine as disgusted i was with Gordon Campbell over his pillaging of taxpayer funds i was appalled and dismayed by Christy’s full bore ramping up of the Neo-Liberal agenda of robbing the public wealth. And when John Horgan’s “green” NDP took the levers of power away from the barbarians at the gate i had a long sigh of relief. Finally after 2 years of control seeing what they have done and paying attention to what they are doing and going to do i can honestly say ….Bring back F-ing Gordon Campbell at least he got us paid …. john is just Christie with no personality.
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I’d be happier if they gave them each the $63k and they could decide how to spend it and some might even return to school or start their own businesses closer to home. Hey we’d even improve the environment.
Of course the NDP has done this, in my opinion, in hopes that the oil and gas companies will not actively fight them in the next election. That isn’t going to happen.
We need the money, those oil and gas companies are usually not Canadian companies. As I’ve said, I’d rather they just hand each of the workers the checks. Here in Nanaimo they’re a tad short of trades people. Just try having a fence built.
My take on it is the NDP is going B.C. Lieberal light. Better transport, some social and affordable house, improvements in education and health care and the rest, same old when it comes to the environment. don’t expect more from the Greens. We just saw Elizabeth May’s routine with Warren Kinsella and her willingness to do business with the federal Conservatives.
Eby will get rid of as much money laundering as he can and deal with some of the criminality in the province, which is a good thing. Now if they would be more supportive of the Surrey Mayor and his new police force, we might be able to get rid of the RCMP in this province and have some police forces which will deal with the H.A. and all the drug dealing in this province. This constant dying is getting a tad depressing and we don’t have enough rehab beds in this province. yes, stop subsidizing oil and gas and put the money into rehab for those who want off the fent. and force the RCMP to start arresting the distributors of fent. laced drugs. Surely they could be arresting some of them. Some of the busts in other provinces has been the arrest of B.C. dealers. Now please can some one tell me why other provinces can arrest B.C. drug dealers and the B.C. RCMP can’t. if its a lack of money, stop subsidizing the oil and gas industry. Hire drug rehab people and counsellors. No more money for Gas and oil subsidies. A child dying in a park, from an O.D., just doesn’t work for me. There is something wrong in a province if the government can throw money at the oil and gas industry but doesn’t have enough money to save the lives of children.
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It is about wealth transfer, from the many to the few. Others have identified this trend for more than 2 decades. The economists at Credit Swiss and the French economist, Thomas Piketty, are those most prominent.
The MSM steadfstly refuses to look at this issue.
The tool used to effect this outcome is the contract that has been singled out as grossly unfair to the public.
It has been nearly 2 decades since the BC Law Institute identified publicly, the unfairness of contract law yet no one has shown a bit of concern about this rip-off by stealth.
Read for your selves their report from September 2011 and understand no member of a legislature has publicly recognized this condition let alone followed suggestions for remedial legislation.
Paul Hellyer and Robin Mathews have understood and expained what has been happpening in Canada so the process is not secrete, it is just that the victims cannot bring themselves to believe that “thier”governments would be so ready to help the 1% at the publics’ expense.
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