Amount refers to the contributions given by the oil industry to the government since 2011
Alberta’s Progressive Conservative Party received almost $ 600,000 of its political donations from the oil industry for the years 2011, 2012 and the first two quarters of 2013, according to finance records filed with the province’s elections body.
The amount is about 13 per cent of the contributions the party received during this period. Polaris Institute, a non-governmental organization, is “concerned” about the tar sands companies’ influence on government regulation. In a report published last December, the institution argues that the government has been “slashing” environmental laws and giving some benefits, such as taxes reduction, for the petroliferous industry.
Donors contributed the most in 2012. Oil companies gave $206,250. This value represents 10.4 per cent of the $1.98-million in total of contributions. Suncor Energy tops of the list, with $14,250. The ranking of key contributors for last year also include ATCO ($10,400). Analysing the contributions per company in the last two and a half years, the biggest amount ($15,000) was given by Canadian Natural Resources and First Energy Capital Corp. during the provincial 2011 election.
The influence by oil companies over the government is criticized by Polaris Institute in its report. The document accuses the current government party of changing the policies of the oil industry to benefit the companies. “The shift in the priorities on the Canadian government towards dependency on the oil and gas industry for the country’s economic development path is characteristic of Canada’s neoliberal agenda, which began with previous progressive conservative and liberal governments.”
Lobbyist activities
The NOG also criticizes the government for the dependency of tar sands as Canada’s “prime economic driver” and suggests a “corporate involvement” with the industry for the policy changes, towards the weakening of environmental laws. One evident appointed by Polaris Institute is the increasing of the corporate lobbying by the petroleum industry in recent years. According to this report, 35 corporations and associated industry advocate organizations logged over 2,700 reports of communications between July 2008 and November 2012 in the Government of Canada.
The tar sands has been used by Alberta Government as a symbol of Canada’s development, according to the latest Annual Report, based on 2012 and 2013. The latest official numbers show records on bitumen production in the province: more than 1.9 million barrels per day. The document shows also that for the fourth fiscal year in a row, oil sands “made up most of Alberta’s non-renewable resource royalty revenue”.
Production explosion
It represents about $3.6 billion of $7.6 billion non-renewable resource royalty revenue in 2012-13. Petroleum and natural gas reached $1.0 billion and revenue from mineral rights sales in the oil sands was $26 million. “Alberta continues to have a combined royalty and tax rate that is in the top quartile of investment opportunities when compared to similar jurisdictions. Business processes, systems and controls continue to result in accurate assessment, calculation and collection of revenues,” says the document.
According to the report, these 27 companies and eight industry associations registered 2,733 communications in the Government of Canada between July 2008 and November 2012. The power of its company is highlighted in the statement in the information that seven of them are ranked in the top ten of Fortune Magazine’s list of the 500 largest global companies, which includes Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, BP, Sinopec and China National Petroleum Corporation. The 2012 annual revenue ($2.534 trillion) of the seven “wealthiest” companies is greater than the GDPs of Russia ($2.38 trillion), for example.
Among the institutions, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) which represents over 100 members and 150 associate members and advertises itself as representing ‘90% of producers of natural gas and crude oil,’ was the busiest of all industry associations and companies at lobbying the Canadian government having communicated 536 times between 2008 and 2012. The second most active was the TransCanada Corporation with 279 communications during the same period.
The long-term horizon for bitumen is of increasing. According to National Energy Board by 2035, Canadian crude oil production reaches 6,0 million barrels per day. In this same year, oil sands account for nearly 85 per cent of production, compared to 54 per cent in 2010.