ALBERTA - “STRATEGIES FOR PROSPERITY, SELF-SUFFICIENCY AND DIVERSIFICATION”

I WROTE THIS IN 2019. I REVITALIZED THE ALBERTA AND CANADIAN ECONOMIES IN THE 1980s and 1990s, ADDING MORE THAN A TRILLION DOLLARS TO THE ECONOMY. TIME TO DO IT AGAIN!

ALBERTA EMPOWERMENT INITIATIVE

“Strategies for Prosperity, Self-Sufficiency and Diversification”

 By Allan MacRae, Sept 22, 2019

Note, written in 2024: All these costs have greatly increased since this article was written five years ago, in 2019. Alberta’s tax transfer subsidies to Canada now total ~one trillion dollars, or ~one million dollars per Alberta family-of-four. Revenue losses due to lack of pipeline capacity now total ~$200 billion. Alberta’s huge subsidization of the Canada Pension Plan continues.

UCP Mandate: Jobs, Making Lives Better for Albertans and Standing up for Alberta.

Overview

During 1961-2017, Albertans contributed $611 billion more in taxes to the Canadian government than Albertans received in federal spending (source: Mansell and Khanal).  If a nominal 2% annual interest rate were included, these “tax transfers” would total $907 billion or more than $800,000 per Alberta family of four.  By any measure, Alberta’s “investment” in Confederation has returned precious little benefit.  It is time for Alberta to assert control over its federal contributions for the prosperity of Albertans.  There are several proposed initiatives that will enable Alberta to achieve empowerment in managing these funds.  Companion incentives are also suggested to attract new investment and create a world-class financial and digital hub in Alberta.  The co-operation of the federal government will greatly help this strategy to become a reality.  Given the massively one-sided flow of money that has left Alberta, Canada has a deep obligation to Albertans. Canadians will all benefit from for a prosperous Alberta.

1)    Create an Alberta Pension Plan – opt out of the Canada Pension Plan.

Alberta should opt out of the Canada Pension Plan (“CPP”) and manage its own provincial plan, as Quebec did from 1965 onwards. Albertans contributed 16.5% to the CPP during 2017 but received only 10.6% of payouts (source: Fraser Institute). Alberta’s share of the $392 billion of assets managed by the CPP is estimated at $65 billion or approximately $14,900 per person.  With less than 23% of the Canadian population, the Quebec plan has assets of $325 billion or $38,700 per person (includes public sector pensions), which is disproportionately higher per person than Alberta.   The Quebec plan is strategically used to enhance local businesses.  Alberta should also have this advantage to benefit its economy.

2)    Collect all income taxes and manage federal tax transfers.

As has been the practice in Quebec, Alberta should collect all income taxes and manage the net disbursements with the federal government. This will give Alberta considerable leverage in dealing with the huge imbalance in tax transfers.  The precedent has already been established by Quebec.  Such financial leverage will also create more balance in export pipeline support, which has cost Alberta and Canada more than $120 billion in lost revenues to date (source: TD Bank).

3)    Bring back investment incentives that are tried and true.

In the 1980s and 90s, Alberta and Canada enacted royalty and taxation incentives that revitalized the oil sands industry, which was moribund at that time.  The revitalization this encouraged attracted $250 billion of investment and created 500,000 new jobs across the country (source: Calgary Sun).  The investor’s rate of return was greatly enhanced by reducing the time to pay back the capital invested.  A shorter payback period also reduced the investor’s risk exposure. Government lost no revenue because the reduced fiscal take was on new income that would have otherwise not happened.  Alberta needs to return to this strategy to reactivate the energy sector and also use the same incentives across all industries.  In 2017, the Trump Administration introduced an industry-wide 100% capital deduction for new investments in the USA that are put in use within six years (PL 115-97).  Let’s make Alberta a great place for industry to re-locate.

4)    Build Alberta into a World Financial & Digital Hub.

The success factors for a World financial center such as Singapore are a reputation of integrity, a friendly regulatory framework, and specific tax incentives for financial institutions.  These factors can be structured to make Alberta an attractive home for world-class banking.  Alberta’s excellent reputation as a safe haven of high integrity has been earned through decades of responsible energy development both at home and abroad.   

The digital economy is now larger than the oil business. Creating the foundation for this new economy in Alberta will attract the capital markets necessary to build a World-class financial hub. A similarly friendly regulatory framework and tax incentives can be applied to technology and innovation organizations.  Digital transformation is and will continue to change government, industry, education, healthcare, environment and humanity.  Matching the capital with the right business and community environment will allow us to attract and build a world class tech sector.  These are high paying skilled jobs that can deliver international products and services.

5)  Restore Low-Cost, Highly-Reliable Abundant Energy to the Alberta Grid
(#5 added in 2024)

Just a few decades ago, electricity in Alberta cost just ~2cents/kWh, fully delivered. In recent decades, Alberta, like so many other venues, has foolishly adopted high-cost, low-reliability, intermittent “green energy” generation (wind and solar) into the grid and costs per kWh have increased ~tenfold. It was proved decades ago that there is no real CO2-driven dangerous global warming crisis; it was always a false crisis.

This political pandering to the Global Warming/Climate Change fraud has squandered tens of trillions of dollars worldwide and has actually harmed the environment. Intelligent politicians are now realizing they were duped by this fraud and are trying to undo the damage. Alberta should take all necessary steps to reverse the damage and should target a fully-delivered electricity cost of ~6 cents/kWh. All intermittent power generation should be de-coupled from the grid as it harms reliability and drives up costs. Coal-fired power should be re-established as the least expensive, most reliable base load for Alberta electricity.

Allan MacRae, Calgary
https://energy-experts-international.com/

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ADDENDA

MOST OR ALL OF OUR POLITICIANS ARE SO IGNORANT THEY SHOULD NOT EVEN VOICE THE WORD ENERGY, LET ALONE FORMULATE ENERGY POLICY - REPRISE

[excerpt]

When I was about 40, I initiated and proposed policies that were successfully implemented that revitalized the Canadian Oil sands industry. The result was over one trillion dollars in benefits to the Canadian and Alberta economies. These policies included new Tax terms, new Crown Royalty terms, and production increases that reduced operating costs from $18 to $12 per barrel. I included these changes in a Strategic Plan that was successfully implemented, 500,000 jobs were created across the country, Canada became the 4th largest oil producer in the world, and for many years had the strongest economy of the G8 countries.
For details see https://energy-experts-international.com/

For the record:

I led all the above initiatives that revitalized the Canadian economy, and had strong support from the following colleagues - together we changed Canada and had a greater positive impact on the country that all other living Canadians:

Class 28 Tax Treatment (100% CCA Rate for Major Oil Sands Expansions)
Helder Mendes (Canadian Oxy), Dr David Devenny (Gulf), Tom Irwin (Canadian Oxy), Glenn Russel (Gulf)

Opportunities for Additional Production (Low-Cost Increased Production Reduced Unit Operating costs from $18 to $12 Per Barrel of SCO)
Dr David Devenny (Gulf), Carl Stephenson (Esso)

New Royalties Agreement for Alberta Oil Sands
Charles Mikkelborg (CanadianOxy), Gordon Willmon (Esso)

I wrote the Strategic Plan that tied all these initiatives together, which was adopted and successfully implemented.

The successful implementation of these plans was largely accomplished by our highly-skilled Management and Workforce at the Syncrude Canada Fort McMurray operation. They successfully managed the increase in production from 40 MMBbl/year pre-Expansion to ~73 MMBbl/year and held the line on total Operating and Capital costs, thus reducing Unit Operating Costs from ~$18 to ~$12 per barrel of SCO.
- An Outstanding Achievement!

The Politicians who were key to this outstanding economic success were:
- Premier Ralph Klein of Alberta, who implemented my Royalty Agreement;
- Anne McLellan, Federal Minister of Natural Resources in the Jean Chretien Cabinet, who implemented a revised 100% CCA rate for oilsands developments, which was extended from my Class 28 to include in-situ oil sands projects such as SAGD.
To my knowledge, that was the last time any Canadian politician made a significant positive contribution to the wealth and well-being of Canadians.

For proof, see: https://energy-experts-international.com/

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All of my positive oil sands policies were since destroyed by ignorant politicians. Canada is still the #4 oil producer in the world, but major growth has stopped, downtown Calgary is empty and our educated kids have to travel elsewhere to get good jobs.

In the 1990’s I published articles in major Alberta newspapers strongly advising against the move to energy deregulation, which could only increase electricity costs. Since then, electricity costs have needlessly increased ~tenfold and grid reliability has seriously declined.

In 2002 my eminent co-authors and I published strong advice that there was no real
Global Warming (Climate) crisis and that Green Energy would be a costly debacle. All our statements have proved correct. Globally, many trillions of dollars have been wasted, and many millions of lives have been squandered.

These are the disastrous results when ignorant politicians who are climate-and-energy imbeciles set energy policy. The cost to Alberta totals many billions of dollars squandered and many thousands of jobs lost.