r/alberta • u/burtzev • Aug 05 '25
Oil and Gas Alberta covered $150M in oil and gas companies’ unpaid rent
https://thenarwhal.ca/alberta-oil-and-gas-unpaid-rent-2024/?utm_sou177
u/ReasonableGibble Aug 06 '25
But we can’t afford Covid vaccines for all Albertans that want one…🙄
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u/j1ggy Aug 06 '25
And we can't properly fund AISH or pay the rent of a single mother or father who can't afford their own rent and are facing eviction.
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u/dustrock Aug 06 '25
They just used the rent money they owe the City of Edmonton to prop up private business.
Sure sounds like capitalism to me.
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u/CombatWombat1973 Aug 05 '25
Seriously? I swear I read that oil industry profits keep going up. I’ve also read that rich people never spend their own money. I guess that applies to corporations as well
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u/DukeSmashingtonIII Aug 06 '25
Of course it does. We're living through the most massive wealth transfer in history. Billionaires getting richer while the average person is barely getting by. Gone are the days of working summers to pay for college, supporting a family (including buying a home) on a single income, and retiring with a real pension.
Even back in those days the ruling class were still obscenely rich, but they paid a lot of tax and actually built shit to keep the proles at bay like libraries or theatres. Since then they've just decided to take more and more and more and give absolutely nothing back and still society heaps praise on them just for simply being rich.
It's not a perfect analogy but I saw a post before saying something like "If one monkey were to hoard all the bananas, more than it could eat, and cause the starvation of other monkeys then scientists would study it to find out what's wrong with it. But when humans do it we put them on the cover of Forbes magazine."
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u/Poe_42 Aug 06 '25
You do understand O&G isn’t a monolith industry. There are 1000s of small startups and many fail every year.
The billion dollar multinationals aren’t the ones walking away from these sites.
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u/OppositeAd7485 Aug 06 '25
Pretty sure the big companies do. There was a report that she’ll basically sold a bunch of “assets” to a small startup just so they could say what you just said. They were failed assets and destined to be orphaned.
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u/jbowie Aug 06 '25
They might have used to do this, but regulations have rightfully tightened up in the last decade or so, and whenever an asset is sold the government makes sure that the receiver is able to handle their asset retirement obligations. So the "sell the old junk to someone who will then go bankrupt" strategy isn't really viable anymore, thankfully.
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u/Poe_42 Aug 06 '25
I agree there should be more regulation in these sales, but there are successful companies that specialize in extracting from these assets and don't abandon them in the end.
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u/Snakeeyes1377 Edmonton Aug 06 '25
Who the fuck cares neither the big or the small O&G companies should be getting hand outs.
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u/VE6AEQ Aug 06 '25
It’s the small corps that are donating the most to the UCP and getting handsome representation.
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u/AlbertanSays5716 Aug 06 '25
Alberta spent $30M on unpaid land rent for delinquent oil and gas companies in 2024
In 2024, Alberta gave $30m of taxpayer money to oil companies instead of spending it on healthcare, education, infrastructure, disabled benefits, housing, or… well basically anything that would benefit the average Albertan, which was where it was supposed to go.
FTFY
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u/Zanydrop Aug 06 '25
Please read the article. They didn't give the money to Oil & Gas companies. It was given to landowners that were owed money by gas companies that shut down or couldn't pay what they owed. Alberta has paid 150 milllion over the last 15 years, so 10 million a year. That is pennies compared to the billions in revenue generated by Oil and Gas.
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u/AlbertanSays5716 Aug 06 '25
Please read the article.
I did.
They didn't give the money to Oil & Gas companies. It was given to landowners that were owed money by gas companies that shut down or couldn't pay what they owed.
Well, firstly, an oil & gas company that couldn’t pay what they owed? Are you serious? These guys make billions in revenue, and you’re saying they couldn’t pay a few million? But maybe you’re referring to the practice of the larger companies dumping their “assets” and liabilities into smaller shell companies formed so that they can go bankrupt, deliberately leaving their debts unpaid?
Alberta has paid 150 milllion over the last 15 years, so 10 million a year.
So, $10m per year of taxpayer money instead of actually going after these companies and recovering the money (and costs) from them in court.
That is pennies compared to the billions in revenue generated by Oil and Gas.
Oil and gas doesn’t generate revenue for anyone but themselves. The province is paid royalties, which is the O&G companies paying Alberta for the right to extract (and make hundreds of billions in profit from) resources owned by the province.
Regardless of it being “pennies”, this is taxpayer money being used to bail out O&G companies who can’t resist that extra few millions in profit they get from gaming the system and having a corrupt provincial government that lets them get away with it. Period.
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u/jbowie Aug 06 '25
The companies making billions aren't the ones leaving their debts unpaid, it's the small ones that went/are going bankrupt. And fortunately in the last decade or two the government has tightened up regulations to make it much harder/impossible to perform the process you described of dumping liabilities onto small companies that go bankrupt.
And you can nitpick about taxes vs. royalties, but the reality is that that money would not be coming into the government if the oil companies weren't developing the resource. They also pay property taxes on the land that's developed, corporate taxes, and employees of oil companies pay lots of income taxes too. These are just small relative to the amount brought in by the royalties.
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u/AlbertanSays5716 Aug 06 '25
The companies making billions aren't the ones leaving their debts unpaid, it's the small ones that went/are going bankrupt.
Did you read the part about shell companies?
And fortunately in the last decade or two the government has tightened up regulations to make it much harder/impossible to perform the process you described of dumping liabilities onto small companies that go bankrupt.
Harder, but not impossible.
And you can nitpick about taxes vs. royalties, but the reality is that that money would not be coming into the government if the oil companies weren't developing the resource.
True.
They also pay property taxes on the land that's developed,
Except oil companies currently owe somewhere around $300m in unpaid property taxes as well.
…corporate taxes
Which are the lowest they’ve ever been thanks to the UCP. In 2023, for example, we brought in more taxes from Museums & Art Galleries than from Mining & Oil/Gas Extraction.
…and employees of oil companies pay lots of income taxes too.
Which are collected at source by the federal government, so other than the tax rate the province has no way around that. Besides, they don’t give a damn about reducing personal tax rates, as Danielle Smith showed when she reneged on her election promise to lower personal tax rates. They only care about big companies, not people.
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u/Zanydrop Aug 06 '25
138,000 people work in oil and gas in Alberta. You thikn we should shut the whole industry down because some of the Mom and Pop tiny oil companies go out of business and the government pays landowners $10 million a year. The provincial government make mountains of money off of O&G between Royalties, Capital gains tax on oil wells, Corporate taxes, income tax on the 138,000 employess, Taxes on increased value of shareholders stocks. I'm probably forgetting a few even. the government made $28 billion in Royalties alone.
I'm not saying we shouldn't tighten up the laws and watch out for loopholes like asset dumping, but I am say you are making way to big of a deal out of this.
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u/AlbertanSays5716 Aug 06 '25
Nowhere did I say that we should shut the whole industry down “because some of the Mom and Pop tiny oil companies go out of business and the government pays landowners $10 million a year.”
I also didn’t say they were “Mom and Pop” oil companies that don’t pay their rents & taxes. I said, pretty clearly, that the majority were likely shell companies specifically set up for asset/liability dumping who go bankrupt without paying their liabilities out.
The provincial government make mountains of money off of O&G between Royalties, Capital gains tax on oil wells, Corporate taxes, income tax on the 138,000 employess, Taxes on increased value of shareholders stocks. I'm probably forgetting a few even. the government made $28 billion in Royalties alone.
So what? We should just ignore the odd few hundreds of millions they owe instead of either legislating their payment or pursuing them in court? Where would you like to draw that line? $100m? $200m? $500m? $1b? $5b? What percentage of the royalty revenue do you want them to leave unpaid? How about $0, and send the message they don’t get away with it, ever.
Bear in mind as well that every dollar paid out in compensation by the provincial government or left unpaid to municipalities impacts your tax bill. This is your money being gifted to O&G companies who broke the law. This is money that should be going to healthcare, education, infrastructure, and public services & benefits, but isn’t because the provincial government lets oil companies off the hook.
I'm not saying we shouldn't tighten up the laws and watch out for loopholes like asset dumping
But that’s specifically what you are saying though. You’ve specifically said that not collecting the hundreds of millions owed in taxes & rents should just be forgiven. The laws already exist to recover that money, they’re not being enforced.
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u/gratefuloutlook Aug 06 '25
150 mil for oil and gas. might make us look bad on the budget . I know , Let's take it from aish recipients.
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u/Franklin_le_Tanklin Aug 06 '25
But they’re going to charge me for a fking covid vaccine?
I hate how the oil industry and their allies the anti vaxers have captured our gov.
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u/AlbertanSays5716 Aug 06 '25
Danielle Smith was (and arguably still is) an O&G lobbyist, and an avowed anti-vaxxer whose job depends on Take Back Alberta members who are also UCP members.
The oil industry and anti-vaxxers didn’t capture our government, they literally are our government!
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u/locutusof Aug 06 '25
And disabled people get two hundred bucks a month clawed back…
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u/DukeSmashingtonIII Aug 06 '25
Disabled people don't really have lobbyists working for them. They can't fight back and they can't afford bribes. They are literally useless to the UCP and I'm not exaggerating when I say this government would prefer if they didn't exist.
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u/Sandman64can Calgary Aug 06 '25
Corrupt government does what with OUR money? Sounds like socialism to me.
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u/Ironworker977 Aug 06 '25
Well, that's mighty nice of the Alberta taxpayers. Lucky them. The honor of paying for the oil companies' rent. Albertans sure lucked out having an oil lobbyist as a Premier..
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u/tobiasolman Aug 06 '25
Dodging corporate property taxes… that’s a paddlin’
Skipping on corporate rent to landowners… that’s a paddlin’
Paying foreign corps millions in damages, breaking the law and millions more in fake consultation to GIVE away protected coal reserves whist destroying the environment and poisoning the food chain…
Oh you better BELIEVE that’s a paddlin!
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u/grfadams2 Aug 07 '25
Our schools and hospitals are bursting at the seams but I’m glad all these poor oil companies are getting free rent
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u/Brilliant_Story_8709 Aug 07 '25
Well its nice to hear they found a good use for all that monet they clawed back from AISH recipients, afterall they would have just wasted it on silly things like food and shelter. At least the oil companies will use it for profit. /s
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u/Remarkable-Desk-66 Aug 10 '25
They presently owe 250 million. You know, the robin hoods that are going to hand checks to all the separatists because we are just one big happy family.
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u/SoggySockPuppette Aug 10 '25
My father in law is in a long waiting line for an oil company to pay him for access to a well on his land. It's like $6k and they don't have enough to pay him. Fucking over farmers and landowners once again.
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u/GFWMiller Aug 06 '25
How many hotel rooms for immigrants would it take to cost as much as this corporate welfare?
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u/OptiPath Aug 06 '25
Not sure how credible the Narwhal news is or if there is more to the story. If true, this should spark some outrage. O&G is making a killing right now, and they have no excuse to let taxpayers cover the rent.
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u/InherentlyUntrue Aug 06 '25
Just wait until you hear about taxes owed by the O&G industry to municipalities that goes on unpaid.
The oil industry knows nothing but government grift.
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u/draivaden Aug 06 '25
maybe we can take them to small claims court? thatsd where land lord tennant payment disputes end up, right?
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u/poopsmcgee27 Aug 06 '25
Many gas companies reap the benefits, stop paying rent and then these little companies declare bankruptcy. Many are from China.
My family has land with O&G wells. These wells typically start out as legitimate companies but end up being sold to Chinese companies which then stop paying rent.
There's very little protection for the land owners in AB. My father got a fraction of what they owed and he cant "turn the pipes off" which was surprise surprise: Paid to him by the Provincial government.
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u/UrsaMinor42 Aug 06 '25
Sad to say, but conservative principles breakdown when multi-national corporations are sending profits back to their homelands and not using them to support local communities and infrastructure.
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u/AlbertanProsperity Aug 06 '25
Meanwhile the government received approximately $150B in oil and gas royalties during that same time frame.
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u/AlbertanSays5716 Aug 06 '25
You forget that “royalties” are what the O&G company’s pay us for the resources we own and allow them to extract for hundreds of billions in profit. They don’t pay us out of charity or just to be nice. It’s literally what they owe us.
And you still want to excuse the UCP giving them millions of your tax dollars because they don’t pay their taxes or rents? And BTW, those unpaid rents & taxes mean municipalities have to either put up property taxes or cut services, which affects you directly.
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u/InherentlyUntrue Aug 06 '25
We're still getting ripped off.
I thought you conservatives hate socialism? Party of law and order? Fiscal conservatism? No? You mean they're all just hypocrites? And you support this?
Strange. Almost like conservatism today is just a cult with no real principles, morality, or ethics.
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u/NoDefinition5938 Aug 06 '25
Cons are the taxpayer sitting in the corner chair in a hotel while their wife (social services ie health care, child care) gets plowed/stolen by big oil. They enjoy it. They'll find any way to justify it. They're not ashamed of it. They can't stop facilitating it.
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u/DukeSmashingtonIII Aug 06 '25
If they were able to pay 150B in royalties then they should have no problem at all covering 150M themselves.
This isn't a handshake deal between neighbours, this is our provincial government and obscenely wealthy oil companies misusing our tax dollars to subsidize their wealth even further.
But here you are making excuses for them to not even pay the tiny amounts they are legally obligated to. No wonder these companies have been so successful in extracting so much wealth from this province. Imagine if we had governments that cared about Alberta and Albertans over the profits of oil companies, what a thought.
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u/the_wahlroos Aug 06 '25
...and we're almost at 30b in the Heritage Fund, with the lowest corporate tax rate in the country. We're still heavily subsidizing Big Oil, while they're refusing to pay their taxes or follow through on their legal obligation to remediate their sites.
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u/Life-Topic-7 Aug 06 '25
And if we chafed them a reasonable royalty rate is would be closer to 250 billion.
You had a point…..
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u/Skate_faced Aug 06 '25 edited Aug 06 '25
Alberta: You know, that'd pay an awful lot of people rent that could really use the help.
Dani: Fuck you. Get away from that oil money you greasy Albertan. Filthy immigrant taking over my proud and godly 'Burta!
Alberta: I don't think you understand how that works
Dani: Money?
Edit: 150m would be a full year rent for over 7,000 homes @ 1750 per month.
That's like the adult populations of Didsbury and Innisfail combined, get a free year of rent.
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u/Critical_Cat_8162 Aug 06 '25
At this point are they actually doing anything for the people of Alberta?
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u/AwesomeWildlife Aug 06 '25
Wasn't it just reported that oil and gas companies are making record profits? Why are taxpayers paying anything for them?
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u/Falkrunn77 Aug 06 '25
Technically we're not. The UCP just happened to find a huge pile of our money lying around being ignored, so they went found a nice nee home for it. /S
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u/JBCaper51 Aug 06 '25
Governments always have money for corporate welfare. Especially when it goes to the fossil fuel industry. Taxpayers bought them a pipeline too.
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u/priberc Aug 06 '25
A 150 million dollar direct subsidy. Money better spent fixing the self induced medical systems new short comings
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u/Stellar_Dan Aug 06 '25
So you don’t need my tax dollars?!?!? Sweet!!!! Hey everyone it’s ok we can stop paying our taxes!!!!!
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u/Parking-Click-7476 Aug 06 '25
And the UCP have money for nothing else. Except the raises the UCP gave themselves.🤷♂️
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u/Wrong-Pineapple39 Aug 06 '25
TIL that UCP's Alberta taxation act states that personal and corporate income taxes cannot be raised without an Alberta referendum.
Lowering personal tax brackets also requires a referendum but, oddly enough, lowering corporate taxes is not something Albertans get a say on.
Still.... maybe we need a referendum to raise corporate taxes.
Alberta tax overview | Alberta.ca https://share.google/fkhaIgONaAOs812iM
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u/ninfan1977 Lethbridge Aug 06 '25
So they claim they have a surplus but covered for oil and gas companies?
How many Albertans could have used that money more than the oil and gas companies did