Dear taxpayers, dear customers, as your sheep festival approaches, which we are informed you now call “national holiday”, we, from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, would like to send you our best wishes and, above all, our most sincere thanks.
We believe that Quebecers — and Canadians — are not sufficiently aware of the importance of the massive and constant investment that the inhabitants of La Belle Province are pouring into our industry. First, we are extremely pleased to see that your oil consumption is increasing every year. Which means that your purchases of Western oil have exploded over the past 10 years, reaching more than $7.1 billion in 2022. There has been an increase since then.
Fun fact: by buying our oil, you send us more money per year than the entirety of what your Ministry of the Environment spends here. It’s crazy, right?
That’s not all. As Canadian taxpayers, it is in your pocket that we extract approximately 20% of the subsidies, credits, reliefs and other gifts given to us by the federal government. It is true that our friends in Ottawa are multiplying their feats to make the amounts thus swallowed up, distributed among around twenty tangled programs, illegible.
We have fun reading each year the partial deciphering that the experts from the Environmental Defense group attempt to do. For 2023, they have identified 17 billion. The previous year, 21 billion. In 2020, 18 billion. Year after year, therefore, dear Quebecers, you send us between 4 and 5 billion dollars in tax gifts. This makes you global champions in financing the fossil fuel industry. Among the 20 most industrialized countries, only China takes more money from its citizens to finance its fossil fuel industry than Canada takes from you. Like the Chinese, dear Quebecers, we cannot hear you complaining about these levies. We salute your silent docility.
Expect to pay more because our lobbyists have convinced the federal government to invest crazy amounts of money in a major hoax: carbon capture. It must be said that we are not sparing our efforts. In 2022 alone, our influencers have identified 2,110 contacts with the Canadian government, or 8 per working day! Following the principle of the paid polluter, the Canadian state subsidizes us to produce some of the most polluting oil in the world, then subsidizes us to reduce this pollution. The idea that we could retain the carbon emitted and then reintroduce it underground is, according to the International Energy Agency, an “illusion” which can only have a marginal impact.
Fortunately, we are excellent illusionists and we managed to introduce into this year’s federal budget, with the blessing of a former Quebec environmentalist, a certain Steven Guilbeault, a concoction of six tax credits worth 83 billion over 10 years, in addition to maintaining several current subsidies. At this level of oil charity, we no longer even know how much to set the scale of your contribution, dear shorn — uh, sorry — dear Quebecers.
But, at a glance, including your direct purchases, that could give, say, 12 billion per year passed from your pockets to ours. (Yes, yes, it’s more than you receive in net equalization. But don’t tell anyone.) Since there are seven million taxpayers in Quebec, this means that on average, each of you pays $1700 per year for our entire benefit. About half in oil and half in oil subsidies.
Do we need this money? Obviously, because our profits only increased by 1011% between 2019 and 2022, reaching 38 billion over three years. And since 70% of our shareholders are foreigners, the vast majority of these beautiful people are leaving not only Quebec, but also Canada. In Europe, several countries have imposed taxes on these excess profits to offer discounts to consumers. Fortunately, neither the government of Quebec nor that of Canada has adopted these absurd ideas.
We note that on the fringes of your folkloric political life, we find separatists claiming that, if you left the Dominion, you would no longer have to finance our pockets — at least other than through your purchases at the pump. It’s true, but we are not at all worried.
Rather, in a recent survey, we note your new enthusiasm for our favorite politician: Pierre Poilievre. Think again. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives will move us up from 7e sky at 13e, at least ! First by dismantling the carbon tax (which will leave you, Quebecers, in Gros-Jean in the lead with your carbon market, because you will pay more than other Canadians for energy, making your products less competitive on the markets). The Conservative leader also committed to dismantling the annoying environmental processes that hinder the construction of our beautiful pipelines.
His bias towards the car is clear: he has pledged not to give a cent to the Quebec electric tramway project, but he is willing to finance a third link only if cars are allowed to enter. Consistency, finally.
So here, dear contributors, is what we wanted to express to you in gratitude. Even though you contribute fantastically to our wealth and our pollution, you give us the pleasure of believing that you live off Canadian oil. But it is we who cling to you and, as long as you cling to Canada, liberal or conservative, you can be proud of providing more than your share to warm our hearts, our profits and the planet.