Alberta Electricity-4.1 billion in indirect taxation

A study commissioned by the Province of British Columbia on the merits of privatization has been put forward.

This study tells us how much we have paid in indirect taxation to Edmonton and Calgary. The number is a staggering 4.1 billions dollars.

That is 3/4 of an annual budget collected on electricity alone as a utility bill rather than the indirect tax that it is! Alberta's low tax regime is still another lie!

Certainly there must be some Conservatives out there shaking their heads and, there must be a bunch of people out there who thought it was not worth while to vote, rethinking their decision?

Alberta Insider Trading Opportunities

Alberta pays power line construction at 15% cost plus.

Alberta power line construction is pegged at 16 billion dollars.

15% of 16 billion is 2.4 billion dollars

There were no public bids; There were no public announcements. Yet, members of the legislature knew that 2 companies were going to get the contracts ahead of any public disclosure.

I find it very difficult to believe some members did not rush out and buy stocks in the two companies before the announcement was made public. By not making the windfall profits to these companies public knowledge they further prevented the general investors from being invited to the table.

That is serious coin going to insiders!

This same scenario is prevalent in all this Governments' transactions. When bids are asked for the winners are seldom published. The unsuccessful bidders are never published nor are their bids. The latter with 1 exception when last challenged on this site.

Alberta Electricity-Indirect Taxation at its best.

Stelmach tells us there will be no sales tax on his watch. He is proud to say Alberta has the lowest taxes in Canada. He fails to say they ramp up utility charges so the cities can get revenue from that source, rather than the Government. When this is considered, I would think Alberta's tax rate is higher than most states.

The headlines today read to the effect companies are leaving Alberta because of high energy prices. Companies have been leaving Alberta ever since they privatized the electricity! Goaded with "Oil or nothing policy" because of their constant failures in creating business they actually opted for energy and nothing else.

Now, we have nothing. The Conservative Government is broke; a complete and abysmal failure! In hindsight I would call it criminal. Time and again I have said it is difficult to distinguish this Government from Organized Crime.

In 2007 I wrote a couple of electrical articles. They seem to have been right on the money!
Search the blog for "Electrical" you will find a small volume of warnings.

The indirect taxation by municipalities by ramping up electrical and water bills is not a new thing. Devon recently raised water prices 25%, because they could. Cities across Canada and the US got into this about 8 years ago. However, no one has taken it to the extreme that Alberta has!

Every dollar the cities take out of utilities as profit is a dollar the province does not have to put back into the city programs. That in turn is 1 dollar more they can reduce the royalty rates.

Add to this shell game the real price of new power lines for export of electricity and you have some big bills coming your way but, that is not all of the story.

The Conservatives have denied the export marker forever. We are all blind and stupid in their minds.

The whole thrust of the power thing has been for power export to the US and this Government has ever admitted this. They continue to flounder under mismanagement.
The US as of 3 years ago stated they needed 70,000 MW of new power generation by 2020. By comparison Alberta is 12,000 MW. Any power built in the US is that much less power to be imported from Canada. It is a sweet export market!

In today's news the US power generation build has slowed down because of the recession. That said, there is still 43,000 MW of generation under construction now.
Ontario and Quebec are ramping up generation to meet this market. There are about 2 dozen power export companies in Canada working this market.
Looking at how quickly the new production is coming on line I would guess that Alberta has missed this market; still another loss for Albertans

Down the hall, Saskatchewan is opting to build one or two nuclear plants of which the Province ( Saskatoon’s Cameco Corp.) will own 30% or more. This is one of the best investments made of any of the provinces.

For those of you who voted Conservative or did not vote at all; you deserve this. The rest of us do not deserve the beating.

Alberta Upgraders - Game over!

The state-owned energy companies in Mexico and Venezuela are falling behind in oil production. Consequently, they are supplying progressively less crude to major refineries in the Southern United States. Refineries in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana are becoming more and more depending on supplies from Alberta's Oil Sands. This may not be quite the bonanza that it seems however due to a quirk of segmentation in oil production.

Bitumen has historically been about 30% cheaper than crude oil. In the past, this has provided an incentive to upgrade Bitumen where it is found. But due to the decline in supply from Mexico and Venezuela, the prices gap has narrowed considerably. The return on bitumen is approaching the price of crude oil.

Bitumen has historically been about 30% cheaper than crude oil. In the past, this has provided an incentive to upgrade bitumen where it is found. But due to declines in supply from Mexico and Venezuela, the price gap has narrowed considerably. The return on bitumen is approaching the price of crude oil. This lowers the profit on upgrading it.

Therefore, some major producers in Alberta are opting to ship bitumen to existing upgraders in the US south and postpone their own plans. This is a big disappointment for construction and energy sector workers for the provincial government. Many of the higher-end jobs are in refining. This is also where most "value added" occurs.

Alberta History 3- The camp grounds and parks.

Up until this crew came into office, Alberta's camp grounds were all public. They were quite probably the very best in Canada!

Millions of Federal monies and more millions of Provincial monies had been put into the camp grounds to install showers, build various buildings, build piers and various other first class improvements.

A large portion of the money from the Federal Government was put into the camp grounds just prior to their being sold.

As usual the Government opened the doors for bids for the camp grounds. As is their lack of business practice, the camp grounds, totally improved, were sold for pennies on the dollar of value.

As usual there were never any names published as to who bought the camp grounds and for how much. Nor were there any figures published on the bids that were put in that didn't get selected.

To put it in one line; "All the camp grounds in Alberta were sold to Torrie insiders at a fraction of their worth"

This scenario is a standard business operation for this crew even today!

In Alberta there is no sense putting in bids on anything as the parties who are going to get the property or chattel are already selected and know what price to bid.

For those of you who think Conservatives are the only way to vote should give your heads a shake. You are not on their buddy list.