One more time: the road tax

[cowman]

I agree completely with you on the wasted water deal. Our provincial government has a long history of not protecting the environment. Injecting water into a formation is something that should never have been allowed. Short term gain- long term pain.
On the electricity thing...that has in reality nothing to do with the oil companys. There is a commodity price for gas and thats just how it is. If its worth $6 then that is what we need to pay. No different than wheat, soybeans, or beef. The whole electricity deal falls back squarely on the provincial governments ideology and incompetence. We should not be using natural gas to produce electricity! We should not have had a deregulated power industry! That is why you and me pay around 9 cents a kilowatt while kato pays 5 cents! So ATCO and Epcor can make a killing!
You ask what Alberta would be like if we never had the oil and gas production? Not too hard to figure out...just look to the east?

[Horse]

Cowman you say just look to the east I agree that we are better off than sask but when you figure the resources we had in this province I say we are doing damm poor o I am sure there are lots of people out there that have a great deal but sask is now starting to develop thier oil and hopefuly they will at least look after thier people instead of seeing how fast and how cheap they can give it away like alta did.
Do you know what the royalties are on a barrel of oil of a gj of gas I heard Ralph say one time we dont need royalties we will tax those that make the good coin and that way we grt our share.
I have a niece in ottawa that did a study on oil resources in alta for her thesis and she said it was unbelivable that we just gave it all away.
Of cource some do very well when I worked in the patch 35 yr ago the whole thing ran on govmt incentives no one worked until the govmt came out with something like a royalty holliday or tax concessions and I bet that today isnt much different does corporate welfare mean anything.

[cakadu]

How safe/fair is it to say that without the oil and gas, Alberta would have been nothing or next to nothing? Wouldn't we have found another way? Before Leduc #1 came in sometime in 1949, weren't we still doing okay as a province? I recall my father-in-law telling me that he worked on the rigs when there was absolutely NO money to be made (that would have been pre-Leduc #1).

I believe that Sask is developing it's oil potential and that is just great.

How much of the lack or seeming lack of resources that other provinces have can be attributed to lack of vision in the government and the leadership? Seems to me that there are times when there appears to be a lack of leadership in this province too, the only difference is that we keep having all of this money come in, so many people in the province tend to turn a blind eye. I recall in the last election that "king Ralph" won all those seats because of deals he made at the last minute AND because oil was back up to a very high level. Would his coronation have been as complete if oil were at $11/barrel? I don't know for sure and that is something we will never know.

Seems to me our leaders spend an awful lot of time going on missions somewhere with pieces of paper having signed promises on them, but not a whole lot ever seems to come of it. Maybe it's just me and someone else out there knows a lot more of the stats than I that these missions do some good. What good came from our leaders flipping burgers at a rock concert in Toronto?

In other threads and in talking personally with people from provinces like Saskatchewan, there seems to be an awful lot of despair over the government and the leadership.

I'm concerned about our growing too dependent on any one thing for our economic survival - low oil prices and the current problems in agriculture point to that not being the best way to go.

[cowman]

Horse:The royalties paid on gas and oil vary. There are still a lot of incentives from the government on royalties. A very small portion of the oil/gas rights are freehold(owned by private individuals) and the royalties on those are almost always higher than the government owned oil/gas rights. That is why you will always see a field exploited on the gov. land before the companies come onto private freehold land.
When the railways were built CPR got every other section in a township along with all mineral rights.I believe this was for 25 miles on either side of the railway. Of the remaining sections the crown gave one section to the Hudsons Bay co. and one section to the schools.The crown land became homestead land, but the crown kept the mineral rights. For a very short period of time CPR sold the land with the mineral rights although they kept the coal rights. By about 1907 they were no longer selling the mineral rights but kept them.
Freehold royalties vary. 15% of production less the owners share of costs is what the oil companies like. This can usually be run up to 17% without a lot of trouble but anything more could be tricky. I have heard of royalties as high as 21%! Now the Alberta government usually takes the 15%!
When Peter Lougheed came into power he tried his best to steal the freehold rights. He got some stiff opposition and lost in court. So now freehold rights are enshrined as real property that the government can't steal. Recently CPR tried to claim that methane gas from the coal beds was actually theirs. After a court battle they lost.
Linda: I can't tell you how we would have done without gas and oil. I don't think we have any better land or climate than Sask.? Sometimes it seems like about half of Albertas population once lived in Saskatchewan, so I guess we've benifitted from stealing their young people and entrepreneurs?
Before Leduc there was Turner Valley. The old time ranch families made a literal killing in oil. A lot of very prominent Calgary families owe their fortunes to the Turner Valley oil fields. The Cross family(A7, Bar Pipe farms, Calgary Breweries) would be one.
I happened to know a couple of old ranchers from Turner Valley(Hartell Bros) who told me about those wild old days. I wish I'd wrote it all down because it was fascinating stuff.