Tearin'UpContractsSince2002Ville
What's it all about this time Alfie?
Well, it turns out the Clarklandians want a 'new deal' with folks in Northeastern BC.
Rob Shaw, of the VSun has the poorly headlined story:
Premier Christy Clark says she’s confident her government can ink a new deal with Peace River-region municipalities on oil and gas revenue, even as her self-imposed deadline looms and negotiations are at an impasse with some communities.
Clark brushed aside skepticism Wednesday over whether she can settle a new “Fair Share” agreement with northeast municipalities to provide grants in lieu of property taxes from the oil and gas sector. She likened the dispute with some northeast mayors to the contentious provincial teachers strike last year.
“We’d like to get to an agreement as soon as we can, to settle things,” the premier said at the legislature...
But, as you might expect, there is a kicker hiding in the happy talk for the folks that actually live in Northeastern BC:
...Clark’s optimism contrasts with the outlook of the Fort St. John and District of Taylor mayors, who have refused to sign any new deal and questioned why the government is trying to replace the existing fair share agreement with a new one that will mean millions of dollars less for the region.
Fort St. John Mayor Lori Ackerman travelled to the legislature this week to try and convince Community Development Minister Coralee Oakes to pause negotiations and honour the existing fair share deal, which doesn’t expire until 2020. She said Oakes wasn’t receptive...
So.
Why, exactly, are the Clarklandians doing this?
Well...
...The government has said the current funding formula, which grows at the rate of the oil and gas industry, isn’t affordable for a province that has seen natural gas revenues decline 80 per cent since 2005....
Gosh.
Somehow I think Ray Blessin and Norm Farrell might have a thing or fifty to say about that 'revenue thing'.
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Tip 'O The Toque to Matt Lamers of the non-Lotuslandian Alaska Highway News for the corrected header image shown above via his Twittmachine feed.
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6 comments:
We should crowd fund to turn Norms charts into billboards so people will see for themselves why we "the little people" are paying more for everything and the resource corporations are paying less in taxes.
The reason that Clark is looking for a new deal is because the BC Liberals have to find a new royalty source to supplement the dwindling funds from the gas companies
Hi Ross, totally off-topic as usual ;-)
Just wanted to leave you a plug here for this blog Port Moody Coquitlam Election 2015
in case you don't know it already.
Doing great work uncovering the backend of federal Con publicity for local candidates.
sd : seconded
@SD yes on the crowd funding. Yes yes and yes. Why the NDP are not already putting out ads is beyond me. Chrispy never stops campaigning .
I thought that LNG was too good to be true?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DpDC24z1Fpc
Mr Shaw left out some critical info on revenues dropping when production is up substantially. And doesn't challenge the premier on all the jobs that are done by Alberta companies and their employees. Employees who pay income tax back home. Not here.
The basis for the agreement is property taxes since gas production facilities are located out in the wilderness. Not like mills that are sometimes inside municipalities.
And when Prince Rupert, Kitimat and some Northwest communities found out that there was precedent to compensate(marginally) for said facilities being outside of municipal boundaries BiG Rich put a woah on it since it could cause harm to producers by making them help pay for amenities for their workforce. So now an agreement that was supposed to be in place to provide certainty will be torn up. Yes, similar to the teachers in that way.
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