Conservatives wasting Alberta away!

As citizens of Alberta trapped under this Conservative Government our chances of getting any meaningful changes to the royalty structures for natural resources in this province are next to nothing.

The oil companies keep raising the bar for what they will pay for the shrinking labour and professional market. They are estimating the costs to go as high as 50.00 per barrel US for oil sands projects!

That would mean on a 85.00 barrel of oil 35.00 would be considered clear after production costs and we would get 8.75 royalty for the dwindling resource.

Under the present scheme there is little or no audit of what they call expenses. There are absolutely no controls over what and how much money they spend on something. There is no consolation even though the money they spend comes direct out of Alberta’s royalty portion.

Or, could it be the costs are jacked up in order to capture more revenue for the oil companies? Even though they are essentially spending our money, they claim huge success for “all the good” they have done by spending our money.

John Clark
cyberclark@shaw.ca