Why Won't the Trudeau Government Claw Back the Fossil Giants' Windfall Profits?

 

For the past half century the fossil energy giants have been logging an average daily profit of 3 billion dollars. Every day. $3 billion. Like clockwork. Since 1970 that comes to a tidy $52 trillion.

Now that gas prices have gone through the roof it's estimated those profits have tripled. Some countries are considering a windfall profits tax to raise funds for social benefits such as health care.  Canada's Chamber of Commerce legislatures don't seem keen to pursue anything along these lines.

The question remains why are Canadian governments, federal and provincial, lavishing such masssive subsidies and benefits on these fossil fuel giants? Why is the Liberal government picking up the tab for a $23-billion pipeline to push bitumen to tidewater? Why are we allowing these corporate  monsters to run up an obscene tab for remediation of the environmental disaster they've created?

We're being taken for a ride and, at the end of the road, we'll be left with an environmental apocalypse and no money to clean it up.

Why? Quia Bono? Hint: it ain't you.


Comments Response:

TB, that $3 billion  figure is a cumulate profit per diem.  For BP, Deepwater Horizon was a hit, to be sure, but not existential.

Lorne, I too despair at the sad state of the Parliamentary press gallery. They seem to have reverted to their sorry state in the 1950s.


Comments

  1. TrailblazerJuly 30, 2022 at 8:48 AM

    BP paid $60 billion for the Deepwater horizon spill and its still business as usual.
    That they, BP, can take such a hit and remain in business would suggest their profits could be more than the $3 billion industry wide figure suggested above.

    https://theconversation.com/bp-paid-a-steep-price-for-the-gulf-oil-spill-but-for-the-us-a-decade-later-its-business-as-usual-136905
    TB

    ReplyDelete
  2. LorneJuly 30, 2022 at 5:50 PM

    It amazes me that more people don't ask these fundamental questions, Mound. It's like when we look at staffing and remuneration in the health sector, why the nickel and diming on a service that almost everyone uses at various points in their life? The answer seems pretty clear to me: those we elected are not here to serve our interests. The massive fossil fuel subsidies are just another illustration of that fact.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Northern PoVJuly 31, 2022 at 7:09 AM

    Meanwhile, the folks that used to give a glimmer of hope on the political front are playing silly games.

    This will backfire and is all about keeping the Green party out of the hands of eco-socialists and BDS-folks:
    "Elizabeth May set to join Green Party leadership race"
    Greens are just another vote-splitting detour from facing the future.

    ReplyDelete

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