LETTER

More subsidies for  Big Oil?  

The backroom dealings that Big Oil are favoured with in normal times have not stopped -- and it is well known that their efforts to obtain further bailouts during this pandemic are continuing, with Finance Minister Morneau promising some kind of announcement soon.

Yet taxpayers have subsidized the oil and gas industry for years, and never more so than since the downturn in oil markets in 2014.  This money has not brought back oil workers to previous employment levels, despite ongoing activity in the Tar Sands -- it has largely served to pay out dividends to shareholders and the CEOs  whose pay plans are already more than adequate.

The National Observer’s April 16 opinion piece, “Time to bail out Alberta workers not billionaire oil company CEOs” which summarizes the issue. Here is the link: https://www.nationalobserver.com/2020/04/16/opinion/time-bail-out-alberta-workers-not-billionaire-oil-company-ceos?utm_source=National+Observer&utm_campaign=ce692f234d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_04_16_12_35&utm_

medium=email&utm_term=0_cacd0f141f-ce692f234d-276803697 

Please add your voice and call or write your MP to tell them this way of “helping” business is not helping the workers who deserve an opportunity to put their skills to renewable energies.  

It’s time to end welfare for the already-rich and to implement the Just Transition plan, promised in the last two elections. Our money would be far better invested in the people who need it, and in subsidies to the industries working hard to develop renewable energies for all of us. This latest corporate grab can be stopped, but Mr Morneau, and our local MP, William Amos, will not heed us unless we raise our collective voices to demand they change their ways.  

Denise Giroux

Chelsea