It's going to take a while for me to sift through the details of the revised petroleum royalty regime unveiled last night by Premier Ed Stelmach.
Just listening to the news driving into work this morning - which was one long "what don't you like" session from speaker after speaker on differing sides of the fence - I came away with the impression that Stelmach may have hit the perfect political compromise - nobody seems to be overly happy with it.
The biggest "stinker" that I see in it is the government reopening the Syncrude and Suncor contracts that were slated to run until 2016. I have some difficulty with opening contracts that are already in play on little more than government fiat. (That said, if the contract and circumstances weren't amazingly generous to the companies, you might find that the company would be standing at the government door with their hand out looking to reopen the contract.
The wailing from the oilpatch players on CBC this morning tells me that the oilpatch didn't win their lobbying war. (I expect that the PC's are going to see a big drop in their "donations" revenue in the coming fiscal year).
Similarly vocal complaints from the environmental lobby and others who wanted a much more aggressive royalty scheme implemented suggest that Stelmach has tried to hit some kind of "middle ground".
I'll reserve a more detailed analysis of Stelmach's changes for when I have time to sift through the gobbledygook and convoluted equations.
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I personally am happy with the solution on the issue of Oil Royalties. The doomsayers threatening to pull out and crash Alberta's economies are still here, still whining and making rude gestures on the issue. And if they did pull out there are other players still wanting in, and at worst a small hiccup would result but the majority of the 'affected' workers would still find work in the end.
Yes, Stelmach could have taken more but as a politician he made the best of a tricky situation. If there is something good to say it's that he's done what was expected of him as politician, he made a compromise for the whole.
It's obvious that the majority of society is far too jaded and spoiled by the attitude of instant gratification to understand this concept. There will be fallout from this but what change won't have some sort of effect? It's a fact of life.
E.
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