I would not hold your breathe on that. You cant trust Ottawa. Plus see who owns the oil when FN land claims are settled.
I also said in my opinion. But don't worry if Ontario needs it or needs it cheap they will get it.
Resources like oil and gas are under provincial jurisdiction because that’s where the constitution puts them. The question I’m asking is more fundamental. Should the constitution assign resources to the provinces? More pointedly, why should the revenues generated from oil reserves in Canada flow to some Canadians who happen to
live in Alberta, and not to others who happen to
live elsewhere?
It should be kept in mind that the amount of money at stake here is not negligible. The reason that all residents of Alberta have an interest in seeing Kyoto fail, and not just those who work in the oil patch, is that every year the government of
Alberta receives over $3 billion in oil and gas revenue. It is because of this “Alberta advantage” that their government is able to maintain the highest spending level of any Canadian province, and yet get by without a sales tax.
If the oil industry suffers, Albertans stand to lose some of this tax break. They may have to start working for their money, like the rest of us.
Outside of Alberta, Kyoto represents quite an opportunity. Not only will compliance require relatively little adjustment, but we stand to gain enormously from the development and export of clean energy, like hydro, wind and solar.
In fact, I bet that if resource revenues were pooled federally, so that all Canadians enjoyed the benefits of both Quebec hydro and Alberta oil, we would not be having the current debate, simply because the benefits would so clearly outweigh the costs. More importantly, there would be no
provincial government with such a powerful stake in the production of dirty energy.
But how else to interpret the behaviour of the government of Alberta? They defend the interests of the oil industry, while right next door to them in Saskatchewan farmers are devastated by climactic volatility. Could there be a more
clear-cut case for the exercise of federal power?
So the fact that Alberta is opposing Kyoto does not give the government of Canada any reason to reconsider its commitment to the accord. Instead, it provides a powerful reason to reconsider the arrangement under which provinces have jurisdiction over natural resources in the first place.