The bigger issue is that the oil and gas royalty game is not going to be around forever. Conventional gas reserves will be completely depleted by 2045 in Alberta. What will albertans have to show for those royalties? Nothing.
look at what a mature and honest jurisdiction does with its fossil fuel revenues in Norway. It actually saves them for an endowment that will help fund education, health, and the like for future generations when that resource is gone. Albertans, they get lower taxes, so they can consume crap now, immediately, and completely foregoing the livelihood of the future. Couple that with the fact that fossil fuel development will have huge net costs in the form of GHG emissions, then there's no way that there's a moral argument to be made for the way Albertans are handling this source of revenue.
Rant over.
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