Alberta Politics & Government Thread 3.0

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Slava

Are you anticipating the NDP cancels this if they win the election?

I don't know, because we don't know the details. I'm not sure why that matters in reference to the current discussion. The NDP didn't make this deal.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

I don't know, because we don't know the details. I'm not sure why that matters in reference to the current discussion. The NDP didn't make this deal.

You don’t think the NDP position on this will make a difference to Calgary voters?

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by nik-

She also added the fuel of a royalty review onto the fire of tanking oil prices. She wasn't a disaster, but lets not pretend she was good.

I've had this discussion a million times.
But what was so bad about the royalty review?

We ended up with a royalty structure that just about everyone agrees is better for both industry and the government.

So I guess it's the timing that was so bad?
That's such a disingenuous argument. There is never a good time for a royalty review.

If prices are good, people will complain that with prices so high, any uncertainty will chase investment out of the province because with such high prices, money can be made anywhere.
If prices are bad, people will complain that with prices so low, any uncertainty will chase investment out of the province because with such low prices, it's just creating too much risk.

So one party's solution was to bite the bullet, listen to experts and implement a royalty regime that is much better for the province and producers in the long run (the benefits have been clear both when prices were high, and when they crashed during the pandemic).

The other party wanted to stick with an outdate royalty regime that would have cost the province money during the high price era, and would have absolutely killed what little work was getting done during the pandemic (low price era)

So you want to penalize the the NDP for having the guts to make a tough decision that ultimately benefited everyone in the province (including the oil and gas producers that the NDP apparently hates and want to drive out of business)?
Not only that, you want to use that as justification for voting for the party that wouldn't have done anything and would have left us in a much worse spot today?

Make no mistake, a large part of the boom in Royalty Revenue that the UCP is currently suckling off of to buy votes, and use to claim they are the last bastion of the mythical "Fiscal Conservatism" only exists because the NDP did the actual hard work to make that possible.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by nik-

She also added the fuel of a royalty review onto the fire of tanking oil prices. She wasn't a disaster, but lets not pretend she was good.

Has anyone been able to quantify how much that actually affected us compared to past royalty reviews? It just comes off as rhetoric to vaguely claim that it made things worse without providing any context. I’m not trying to dismiss the claim, I think actually providing data would help others see your point because the easy counter argument would be that given the direction the market was going it’s unlikely that the review was much of a factor since the market conditions had already convinced investors to hold off.

If there is data to suggest that reviews lead to a significant decrease in investment, the question then becomes whether it’s best to do these reviews when the market is poor and we have the least to lose or if it’s best to do it when the price of oil is high and we any lost investment is exponentially more costly.

[nik-]

Yeah, sorry no. Tanking prices and business closes up shop is definitely the wrong time.

I'm still voting for NDP this election, but that was a dumb move.

[belsarius]

I disagree. The industry already hitting the pause button itself on new investment is the best time to do a review. You aren't disrupting very many investments and they made sure to have the review done and over before the industry started to rebound.

Plus the very important fact is that the royalty review was one of the NDP's major planks in their election campaign and they delivered on it. If they had won and then not completed the review, people would be here complaining about broken promises.

[puckedoff]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1651892563878739968

Apologies if this is old but its hard to believe someone like this can be leading in the polls.

[Ozy_Flame]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

Apologies if this is old but its hard to believe someone like this can be leading in the polls.

I'm calling the snitch line to report your un-Albertan activities

[Reggie Dunlop]

Setting up diplomatic and economic ties with "red states" sounds a lot like the Diagolon movement.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by Slava

You don’t think the NDP position on this will make a difference to Calgary voters?

No, I'm saying they can't really comment on it, because like us, they don't know the details on it.

[flames_fan_down_under]

Dumb, unoriginal but most of all a massive liar who can’t keep track of her own bull####! The UCP deserves Danielle Smith.

[Yoho]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1652050091698450432

Just need to nail down the Slava swing state and UCP will be off and running again for another term.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by nik-

Yeah, sorry no. Tanking prices and business closes up shop is definitely the wrong time.

I'm still voting for NDP this election, but that was a dumb move.

But why was it a dumb move?
Do you know what the actual result/changes to the royalty structure actually were and why it was a pretty positive result for everyone involved, and how we reaped the benefits of that when prices were high, and when prices tanked during the pandemic? And how we are reaping those benefits now? More importantly how they UCP is taking credit for that to claim they are somehow the greatest example of financial acumen in the country?

That's great that you're voting NDP, but why are you spouting a talking point against them when it seems your only reasoning is "Nuh uh, it's bad"?

I can understand why people might think that, but the reality is, getting it done was the right decision, and anyone who uses that against the NDP is incredibly misguided.
For once we had a government who was willing to go through some short term pain for a real long term benefit, and you want to penalize them for it?

Meanwhile the alternative is sitting on your hands and keeping an inferior system in place so you can wait for "A good time", that will never actually come.

To add/be clear. At the time, I said a lot of the same things, and was about as anti-NDP as they come. But I can't argue with results. It was the right decision at the time, and I'm glad they didn't listen to people like me who couldn't seen the long term benefits we would all reap.
Seeing how they handled that, especially when what the review panel came back with wasn't what a lot of NDP supporters wanted, but they implemented it anyway, is one of the best examples of good governing I've seen in my lifetime. I can't think of a single example of anything even remotely similar that the UCP has done since.

[Izzle]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

But why was it a dumb move?
Do you know what the actual result/changes to the royalty structure actually were and why it was a pretty positive result for everyone involved, and how we reaped the benefits of that when prices were high, and when prices tanked during the pandemic? And how we are reaping those benefits now? More importantly how they UCP is taking credit for that to claim they are somehow the greatest example of financial acumen in the country?

That's great that you're voting NDP, but why are you spouting a talking point against them when it seems your only reasoning is "Nuh uh, it's bad"?

I can understand why people might think that, but the reality is, getting it done was the right decision, and anyone who uses that against the NDP is incredibly misguided.
For once we had a government who was willing to go through some short term pain for a real long term benefit, and you want to penalize them for it?

Meanwhile the alternative is sitting on your hands and keeping an inferior system in place so you can wait for "A good time", that will never actually come.

It's all down to what is forming their opinion in the first place.

Economy is bad, royalty review will make it worse. This is extremely sticky. To shake this off, one needs to go through the intellectual rigor that you've outlined. Alas, there are a good portion of people that are intellectually lazy and will not update their priors.

[accord1999]

Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz

But why was it a dumb move?
Do you know what the actual result/changes to the royalty structure actually were and why it was a pretty positive result for everyone involved, and how we reaped the benefits of that when prices were high, and when prices tanked during the pandemic? And how we are reaping those benefits now? More importantly how they UCP is taking credit for that to claim they are somehow the greatest example of financial acumen in the country?

There wasn't much change

That's why industry had expected this review would lead to a rate hike. But instead, the panel concluded Alberta's rates are comparable to other jurisdictions.

...

The oilsands, which contribute the most in royalties to provincial coffers, will be unaffected as rates will remain the same.

Royalty review's key conclusions

The key points of the report are:

Albertans are receiving their fair share.
Oilsands royalties won't change.
Conventional oil and gas wells will pay a minimum royalty of five per cent of revenue until they have recovered costs.
System will reward the most efficient drillers.
Alberta markets will be developed for the use of natural gas.
Alberta government accepts the report and is expected to adopt its recommendations this spring.

The biggest changes were to NG but that really didn't matter as long as Canadian export is limited to the US.

The biggest benefit of the review is that Albertans can point to it to show that Alberta is getting a good share of resource profits whenever the Rest of Canada tries to use the argument that oil and gas profits only go to the private sector.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...nges-1.3424556

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by PeteMoss

https://twitter.com/user/status/1652017591807016961

Oilers ownership wanting some of that sweet provincial money too.

They should just give Katz a cheque for 330 million at the game in LA tomorrow. No sense in asking him to leave where he lives to come back to Edmonton for the cheque.

[Bring_Back_Shantz]

Originally Posted by accord1999

There wasn't much change





The biggest changes were to NG but that really didn't matter as long as Canadian export is limited to the US.

The biggest benefit of the review is that Albertans can point to it to show that Alberta is getting a good share of resource profits whenever the Rest of Canada tries to use the argument that oil and gas profits only go to the private sector.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...nges-1.3424556

The final rates didn't change much, but there were some very significant changes around royalty holidays, how payout for those holidays are calculated, and what wells qualify for those holidays.

What we had incentivized a limited number of plays, and because a lot of the holiday periods were time based rather than a payout structure, it made it very difficult to justify drilling during low price periods, and really hamstrung the province, revenue wise, during periods of high prices.

Essentially what we had made it harder for companies to drill when prices were low, and limited what the province could collect when prices where high.

What we have now does the exact opposite of that. It helps industry keep drilling when prices are low, and makes sure the province doesn't miss out when prices are high and everyone is making money hand over fist. And it applies to all plays, not just the chosen few.

So yeah, the peak royalty rate on gas stayed the same, but when and how it gets payed out changed in a lot of important ways.

Edit to address that article:

These are 2 very important points:

-Conventional oil and gas wells will pay a minimum royalty of five per cent of revenue until they have recovered costs.
-System will reward the most efficient drillers.

Those were both significant changes (that second point involves some pretty massive changes to how royalty holidays were calculated)
So to say that not much changed, or as Brian Jean said at the time that this was "A waste of time" shows a total lack of understanding of just how important/significant those two bullet points are

[Aarongavey]

https://twitter.com/abdaniellesmith/...193742848?s=12

Nice to see Danielle committing to throwing some cash the Oilers way to even it out.

[Reggie Dunlop]

How about some cash for Cavalry FC? I'm sure the Southerns could use the help.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Reggie Dunlop

How about some cash for Cavalry FC? I'm sure the Southerns could use the help.

Imagine what Bentley could do if the Bentley Generals had a proper entertainment district. There are a lot of good opportunities all over the province.