The contribution of Canadian energy companies is ignored by Liberals and NDP

Voters should keep the data top of mind next election

Canadian government revenues in 2022 comprised over $413 billion, not enough for the Trudeau Liberals who still manaaged to turn in a deficit of $90 billion. That revenue is equivialent to about $45,000 for a family of four.

Source: Government of Canada

One group who contribute more per capita than most is the employees of Canadian oil & gas companies. Take Peyto Exploration and Development (PEY.TO) for example. Peyto employs about 60 people and their efforts have contributed $684 million in to government revenues in the past decade, more than $10 million per employee or $1 million per employee per year. ¹ Canadians in general are overtaxed by the Trudeau Liberals with taxes at all levels eating up 45% of household income.² But averages don’t tell the whole story - it is the enormous contribution of the oil & gas industry that drives up the averages, and it is this vital industry that bears the brunt of the Liberal government’s attacks on Canada’s prosperity with their incessant but nonsensical claim that CO2 causes climate change (it does not and cannot) and the enactment of the politically correct but otherwise useless “carbon tax” that fuels the inflation many Canadians find outstrips their income and pillages their household budgets.

The oil & gas industry alone paid $48 billion to governments in 2022 and that figure is expected to rise to $64 billion this year according to the Royal Bank of Canada. Since 2000, the oil & gas industry has paid over $500 billion to governments. According to Statistics Canada, that industry employed 72,800 Canadians in 2019. Based on the 2022 data, each oil & gas worker’s efforts contributes $659,000 in revenue to Canadian governments. How much did you contribute?

Canada’s 338 members of Parliament each receive an annual salary of $178,000 (more than double the Canadian average with an indexed pension thrown in if a member remains in Parliament for six years or more), with some members getting paid a higher rates for their roles in cabinet.

Assuming average tax rates, the whole lot of parliamentarians pay an aggregate of about $20 million in taxes per year. Peyto’s 60 employees contribute more than double that to goverment coffers directly, and create another 110 high paying jobs for the service industry they use to drill, cap and close wells and build processing plants and connecting pipes. Trudeau wants to put their company out of business based on his baseless claims of CO2 caused climate change. Utter nonsense, but nonetheless destructive to Canada and its economic prosperity.

Wake up Canada. Our energy industry is an engine of our economic success and together with forestry and mining pay the freight for the government programs Canadians benefit from in education, health care, pensions, employment insurance and public infrastructure. Our resource industries are stifled by leftist dogma emanating from Ottawa while Trudeau gives billions to Stallantis and Volkwagen to build battery plants in Windsor that will ultimately become white elephants dependent on the federal dole to exist. It is unlikely that Tesla, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Toyota, Mercedes or Volvo will source electric vehicle batteries from Volkswagen or Stellantis and these two beneficiaries of Liberal largesse will need extraordinary success to ever sell enough EV’s to fill those plants let alone the other EV battery plants they operate in Europe.

We need to put an end to stupidity in Ottawa. Vote Trudeau down the road at the first opportunity.

1. Peyto president’s report June 2023

2. Financial Post