EDMONTON—Alberta taxpayers are subsidizing the oil and gas industry at increasing rates even as governments commit to curbing emissions, according to a new report.

Environmental Defence and the International Institute for Sustainable Development released a report Thursday showing the Alberta government shelled out an average of at least $1.6 billion per year over the last three years, including more than $2 billion in 2017-18 alone, for oil, gas and coal production and consumption.

The groups say at least $8.6 billion of public money will go to the fossil fuel industry until 2026, based on previously announced programs and budgetary measures. That number excludes other possible revenue streams from royalty programs, tax deductions for exploration, development, drilling, and petrochemicals diversification.

Meanwhile, the federal government has committed to eliminate inefficient fossil fuel subsidies by 2025.

“We have scarce tax dollars, and yet we’re giving it to an industry that is profitable, that produced record amounts of oil last year, and the jobs that they used to create aren’t coming back,” said Joshua Buck, Alberta climate program manager with Environmental Defence.

Thomas Schneider, an accounting professor at Ryerson University in Toronto who has tracked environmental liabilities in oil industries around the world, said the report released Thursday is credible and well-written.

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“The amount of money that goes to the government (in Alberta) as compared to industry is very, very low by any standard,” Schneider said.

The report argues the subsidies give an unfair advantage to fossil fuel projects that might not be viable without government support.

It also asserts that Alberta collects some of the lowest royalty rates in the world, receiving $2.37 billion from the industry in 2017-18, in a year when Alberta’s 30 most productive oilsands projects generated $53.5 billion in revenues and $10.14 billion in private profits.

That puts the royalty rate at 23.37 per cent, compared to 58 per cent in Australia, 63.5 per cent in China, 78 per cent in Norway, and 85 per cent in Saudi Arabia.

Royalty revenue has declined 63 per cent since 2000 despite growing production, while jobs in the extraction and distribution portions of the industry have been “relatively flat” since 2006 and declined in 2015 — factors that make Buck question whether subsidizing the industry provides long-term benefits to Albertans.

Buck said the money currently subsidizing oil and gas should be diverted into renewable energy, manufacturing and other industries, and used to support workers making that transition, much like the province has done with the coal industry.

He said renewables are viable in Alberta, pointing to a 20-year deal signed last week to double the province’s solar capacity at an average price that’s cheaper than the going rate for electricity.

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“Everybody knows people that work in the oil and gas sector. They know how good those jobs have been for a couple generations now — they’ve put people’s kids through colleges, they’ve put food on the table and a roof over people’s heads,” Buck said.

“It’s difficult to see just how rapidly the world is changing around us when on a day-to-day basis, the world doesn’t seem that different to us as individuals. So it becomes very challenging for people to realize that the industry that they grew up with, that they trained for, that they thought they would always have a career in, is leaving them behind. That’s a scary feeling. And it’s nobody’s fault — it’s not the individual’s fault.”

Subsidies aren’t the only major cost taxpayers could be stuck with long into the future.

A report by the Toronto Star, Star Calgary, National Observer and Global News in November revealed internal Alberta Energy Regulator estimates that it could cost $260 billion to clean up oilsands and coal mines, oil and gas wells and facilities, pipelines and tailings ponds. The Alberta government has only collected $1.6 billion from the industry to cover those costs.

Meanwhile, Alberta’s oilsands emissions grew by 367 per cent, to 72 megatonnes, between 1990 and 2016. Canadian crude oil production increased by 133 per cent in that time, with 90 per cent of that growth coming from Alberta’s oilsands.

Schneider said the province has way more oil than it can burn if it is going to meet its climate change obligations, so a decision has to be made about how much will be left in the ground.

He said Alberta should be directing its efforts toward renewable energy, but he’s not sure if renewables can fully replace oil and gas jobs. While demand for oil will eventually fall off, he said current trajectories don’t show that happening.

Schneider noted the industry also pulls in jobs and tax dollars, and said an argument can be made that the overall “knock-off” benefit to society is worth the risk of continuing to subsidize an industry that will eventually be unsustainable.

He feels the conversation might be an impossible one to have in Alberta, however, given the strong opposition to talk of transitioning away from fossil fuels and other policies perceived to be anti-oil.

“It’s a visceral thing. It’s unbelievable,” Schneider said. “I would argue that the current government is doing as much as they possibly can, but it’s just a political impossibility in many ways.”

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