The Editor,
Recently the leader of the NDP let slip his party’s plans for Saskatchewan’s oil and gas sector by saying he’d like to see regular reviews and raises of the royalty structure that resource companies pay.
It goes without saying that regular hikes in royalties would severely harm oil and gas companies, but they would also threaten thousands of jobs and workers in these industries. For areas like Saskatchewan’s southeast this would be devastating.
This proposal harkens back to the failed policies of Dwain Lingenfelter, who in 2011, called for massive royalty hikes to pay for his tax-and-spend priorities.
In fact, even one NDP MLA recognizes how destructive regular royalty hikes would be; Buckley Belanger, NDP MLA for Athabasca, who said in the Legislature earlier this year, “Don’t change the royalties. Don’t try and mess with any of the alliances we had with the industry that develops a lot of the resources in our province.”
Unfortunately for Mr. Belanger and the province, the NDP leader has different ideas – it’s just too bad these ideas are based in the past, and would take this province backwards from a national leader in growth back into “have-not” status. The NDP may have a different leader, but as we are seeing more every day, it’s the same old NDP.
Doreen Eagles,
MLA for Estevan
