(Photo: Lethbridge News Now)

By Troy Gillard

billions in lost revenue highlighted

Canadian Taxpayers Federation bringing cross-country pipeline tour to Red Deer

Jun 13, 2019 | 10:09 AM

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s cross-country tour showing how much money taxpayers are losing because Canadian oil is sold for less than its full value due to a lack of pipeline capacity is coming to Red Deer this weekend.

The tour, which includes a large digital clock displaying the losses going up in real-time, will be set up at City Hall Park this Saturday starting at 12:30 p.m. Red Deer – Mountain View MP Earl Dreeshen, Red Deer – South MLA Jason Stephan, and Reg Warkentin with the Red Deer and District Chamber of Commerce are among those scheduled to speak at the event.

The CTF is a federally incorporated, not-for-profit citizen’s group that bills itself as being dedicated to lower taxes, less waste and accountable government.

Alberta Director for the CTF, Franco Terrazzano, says the point of the cross-country tour is to show all Canadians why they should care about pipeline development.

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“Canadian taxpayers are losing out on billions of dollars because we can’t get pipelines built and we’re not receiving full value for our oil. That means we have less money for important things like hospitals, hiring more teachers and taxpayers are stuck with a higher tax bill,” Terrazzano said Wednesday during a tour stop in Lethbridge.

Based on data released by the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the CTF has calculated just how much additional revenue the federal government would receive if that oil price differential was lower.

“Since 2013 the pipeline deficit is costing Canadian taxpayers over $6 billion, and we have a display showing the real-time cost of a lack of pipelines is going up by $3 million every day,” Terrazzano added.

Terrazzano explained that workers in Alberta’s energy industry are made worse off when governments block pipeline development, but so are the rest of Canadian taxpayers.

“This is the important message the CTF has taken to every province: all Canadians benefit when pipelines get built.”

In May 2018, the federal government announced its intent to buy the Trans Mountain Pipeline from Kinder Morgan for $4.5 billion. That was met with criticism from both sides of the debate, from an environmental standpoint and a taxpayer standpoint.

We know where Terrazzano and the CTF stand on the taxpayer’s view, but he admits that Canadians are right to have environmental concerns given the world we live in today.

“We should have environmental concerns, and we should have a regulatory system that considers those concerns and that also lets us have development,” he noted.

“When we’re talking about the environment, we also need to have a global lens. Oil use is not going anywhere anytime soon, and so we have to ask ourselves where we want the oil to be produced and have the jobs created. Do we want that to be in Canada, or places like Saudi Arabia, Russia or Nigeria? We can create jobs at home and help the global economy if we have a regulatory system that allows pipelines to get built.”

(With file from Aaron Mahoney – Lethbridge News Now)