Red-faced NDP brass have admitted that the $412-million, job-killing tax on gas flaring in their platform was flawed; sourced from a report they hadn’t read; and that they had no clear idea what they were taxing or who to collect that tax from.
April 29, 2009
Red-faced NDP brass have admitted that the $412-million, job-killing tax on gas flaring in their platform was flawed; sourced from a report they hadn’t read; and that they had no clear idea what they were taxing or who to collect that tax from.
“Only the NDP would announce a $412-million tax on one of B.C.’s most important industries and not even know who or what they were taxing,” said Energy Minister Blair Lekstrom. “At a time when our economy is struggling it is grossly irresponsible for the NDP to announce a $412-million tax with no research, no consultation and not even a basic understanding of what it is that they are taxing.”
Lekstrom was responding to
Gerry Scott, NDP Campaign Co-Manager, who announced yesterday that the NDP Platform was wrong. He confessed that the $412-million NDP gas flaring tax would now need to be amended to include fugitive emissions and unwanted gas leaks in order to meet their greenhouse gas reduction and revenue targets.
Scott’s weak excuse reported in the Tyee was that the NDP platform was simply “edited down a little too much” and that the NDP always intended to “charge a royalty on all escaped gas – not only the portion that is flared."
“This is more energy policy on the fly by the NDP and family-supporting jobs are at stake. To announce two weeks after the fact that a tax on flaring was also intended to apply to activities totally unrelated to flaring demonstrates that the NDP don’t even have a basic understanding of one of B.C.’s largest industries,” said Lekstrom. “Industry representatives recognized that the NDP Platform was flawed from day one. Apparently it took the NDP two weeks to reach the same conclusion.”
Ben Parfitt of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), whose report the NDP have said they designed their tax on, confirmed in an interview with the Tyee that the NDP had not done any research on this tax. According to Mr. Parfitt, the NDP only called him after their platform was released in a desperate attempt to try and understand who they were trying to collect their $412-million tax from.
This follows earlier analysis released by world-renowned climate expert Marc Jaccard who concluded that NDP climate and energy policies would kill 60,000 jobs in B.C. communities.
“There are thousands of families who depend on the oil and gas industry for their livelihood,” said Lekstrom. “For the NDP to announce a $412-million job killing tax on the oil and gas industry and not even know who or what they were taxing is a slap in the face to every one of those families. Carole James should cut her losses, abandon this destructive tax, and apologize to these families for continuing to promote reckless, job-killing policies that have clearly been drawn up on the back of a napkin.”
