Quote:
Originally Posted by bizaro86
That contract was for way more than the value of the oil transport though. So the choices were "lose this money over time" or "pay a fee to get out of it". The UCP has enough bad fiscal choices without blaming them for the bad fiscal choices of the NDP as well
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The analysis would have to go a lot deeper, but on the surface, if oil by rail facilitates more production you get:
- more royalties
- more labour hours --> more income taxes (and perhaps less EI/other social services demanded)
So the 'lose money over time' scenario you may still more/less break even...especially on the royalty side once prices rebounded?
This is the big thing - NDP
"mistakes" tend to have a silver lining, because they are actually well intentioned. I think it was GGG who made the point earlier that even though GoA took a financial loss on the PPAs, many/most Albertans ended up having this offset on their electricity bills. And some Albertans likely mitigated deleterious health impacts from living near coal generation, likely meaning reduced healthcare costs over time.
Indirect and difficult to quantify, but I struggle to imagine any silver linings to things like the war room or Keystone debacles.