Income Trusts: It's the NEP all over again!

If you listened to the whining coming out of the "Energy Trusts", you'd think that the Conservatives had resurrected Pierre Trudeau's disastrous NEP.

Of course, this is an entirely predictable response out of the energy industry, which has nursed a sore spot grudge about the infamous NEP for decades. Every time a government does something which affects this industry in some form, the spectre of the NEP is raised.

Personally, I see this as little more than recycled hysteria. Governments need money t operate. What do you think is going to go over better - insisting that anonymous corporate entities pay taxes, or the massive increase in taxes that the middle income earners would have to bear as a result of a growing backlog of "deferred" taxes. (especially when those 'trust' units are held within people's RRSP plans. Anybody who didn't smell something wrong when every company and their dog started to become "income trusts" couldn't have been paying attention.

If nothing else, this creates an opening for other political parties to make some real gains in Alberta as long time "Conservative" voters wake up to the reality of the party they've been voting for blindly for so many years.