The R word sounds sour note in B.C.’s Northeast – BOE Report (press release)

Tyler Kosicks family has been in the trucking business up north for decades and its fair to say hes heard some pretty salty language in his day. But theres one word floating around this election campaign that sounds particularly foul to him and a lot of other folks in communities with resource-based economies.

Thats the R word.

R in this case stands for review and when its coupled with oil and gas subsidies in the NDP platform, well its like dropping an F-bomb in front of your grandmother.

And the problem with the New Democrats, far as Kosicks concerned, is theyve embarrassed granny more than once.

The NDP dont understand that if you dont have a strong economy and you dont incentivize people to actually get out there and explore, manufacture, provide services, if theyre not viable, then you dont have the tax revenue, you dont have the jobs and you dont have everything that feeds back into those public coffers and you end up going the other direction and taking on more public debt as a province, says Kosick.

Weve seen that in the past and it doesnt work.

The NDP policy plank that commits the party to a review of oil and gas subsidies should it form government may play well in urban areas, but its like lighting a match to see where the gas leaks coming from in B.C.s energy patch. Locals like Kosick dont like it. Resource industry investors hate it. Theyve invested billions of dollars in long-term investments based on the current set of rules. Reviewing those rules with an eye to what many see as the NDPs ardent wish to kill those subsidy programs will have potentially dire consequences.

Who will bear those dire consequences? Average workers, including unionized employees. Some of the Canada Pension Plans largest investments are with the dividend-churning companies in the national oil and gas sector. The same is true of the BC Investment Management Corporation that manages the futures of countless union resource retirees.

In contrast, the BC Liberal platform promises to continue to provide incentives for producers drilling deep wells for natural gas to ensure our natural gas reserves are developed economically.

Fiddling with subsidies while the oil patch burns would also have a direct impact on Kosicks home town of Fort St. John, especially if the NDP subsidy review puts the brakes on programs like the one supporting shoulder season drilling.

We had a winter rush and the rest of the year was slow, says Kosick. So the government introduced this program to help them keep going year-round, which definitely helped business and more so for labour.

By expanding the drilling season, communities like Fort St. John saw fewer transient workers and more year-round workers who moved into town, keeping their money in their new homes. Mess with that and what will happen?

If theres no incentive for the producers to work year-round, then the communities could suffer as we go back to a transient work force, says Kosick.

Subsidies also encourage companies to find new ways to reduce carbon emissions. The current BC Clean Infrastructure Royalty Credit Program has resulted in 13 methane-reduction programs. Kosick thinks thats a better approach than imposing restrictions on the oil and gas industry like the carbon tax.

Why cant we look at subsidizing energy companies to incentivize them to do that (reduce emissions) as opposed to imposing carbon taxes? he says.

Why not say, Heres some subsidies and by 2025 or 2030, this is the model we want to see in place, you have until then to do it, and were going to help you with these subsidies. But instead, they carbon tax.

Kosick believes that any money saved by scrapping oil and gas subsidies wouldnt end up back in the Northeasts communities.

The NDP always source out ways to keep more money in the government coffers to be able to fund their ideology and fund their social programs, he says.

I think a lot of that (NDP policies) is to appease their southern votes.

Its enough to make a body use the R word.

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The R word sounds sour note in B.C.'s Northeast - BOE Report (press release)