Private Gain or Public Interest? Reforming Canada's Oil and Gas Industry
December 7, 2009 - 10:21am
What if the oil and gas industry were public instead of private? - CCPA
Canada’s oil and gas industry creates significant environmental and social problems for Canadians. This is partly because of the nature of the for-profit, private-interest business corporation, which dominates that industry.
Could some of the problems be resolved by purchasing the industry and converting it to an industry aimed at serving a broader public-interest mandate? Legally and financially, the transformation would be relatively straight-forward, and there are precedents.
Could some of the problems be resolved by purchasing the industry and converting it to an industry aimed at serving a broader public-interest mandate? Legally and financially, the transformation would be relatively straight-forward, and there are precedents.
Could you see any of our political parties even suggesting reforming Canada's oil and gas industry in this manner?
There's a good reason for it too. Provincial governments - at least the ones with oil in their boundaries - would howl.
Skimmed through the report, may have missed a few things. Given the current and past dispositions of government I'm not really sure that a publicly owned oil and gas industry would manage to be any more responsible. Subsidies and trade agreements seem to demonstrate that the current government has an interest in the current way things are operating. A change in attitudes seems to be more important than a change in ownership.
There's a good reason for it too. Provincial governments - at least the ones with oil in their boundaries - would howl.
The CCPA report doesn't specify federal government expropriation or ownership. It recognizes provincial jurisdiction of natural resource management. Rather, it speaks of an agreement among the jurisdictions concerned to create a public corporation, and a joint federal-provincial-municipal oversight which would make it more difficult for some future government to privatize. It goes on to say that such an enterprise need not be "zero-sum" from a federal standpoint (i.e. a net gift from oil and gas producing provinces to others).
I think it would be necessary to abrogate or renegotiate NAFTA. Private foreign interests are already established in Canada's oil patch and corporate rights to free market baloney protected under NAFTA. It's really screwed up. And it's why if the feds are serious about protecting social programs with being able to regulate and ensure public ownership and control, like childcare, they have to act now before foreign interests become established in Canada and open the taxpayers up to sue jobs under NAFTA or WTO trade diktats.
Agreed Fidel. The idea of improving our energy resource management seems to be much in reach once you take out the possibility of every step being questioned by an international trade panel.
Also agreed the implications of the WTO agreements on public services is really scary.
Righto, Fidel. First lyin' Brian deregulated...Ottawa had required a 25 year proven reserve of natural gas before throwing it to the market (for instance). Then came NAFTA. Never could understand the change in attitudes on the energy question - how we were to stay warm in winter without LNG once the conversion to natural gas began to take place a half century back, east of Superior.