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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will be tiptoeing through Calgary on Thursday amid frustration with the province’s ongoing financial woes and one day after his finance minister unveiled a fiscal update that his Alberta counterpart said showed Ottawa is “on a different economic planet.”
Trudeau will be making several appearances across the city, starting with a tour of an affordable housing complex, before speaking at the Calgary Chamber or Commerce, meeting with oil and gas leaders, meeting with Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi and finishing with an appearance at a women’s hockey festival.
He’ll be met by at least one protest along the way, calling on Ottawa to do more for the energy sector.
Fiscal update reaction
On Wednesday, Finance Minister Bill Morneau outlined Ottawa’s latest financial plans, which included the ability for oil and gas producers to write off capital expenditures related to manufacturing.
But Alberta’s Finance Minister Joe Ceci was angry the fiscal update did not include a direct line item to help bolster the province’s ailing energy sector and help close the price gap between benchmark oil prices and Alberta’s oil.
“Ottawa is living on a different economic planet. We must get our product to tidewater and nothing today moves us closer to doing that. This update does not address one of the biggest concerns Albertans have: getting fair value for our non-renewable resource,” Ceci told media Wednesday afternoon.
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers welcomed the tax writeoffs but called it a “positive first step” and not a solution to the problems the industry is facing.
Provincial action
On Thursday morning, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley told a crowd at Calgary’s Petroleum Club that if Ottawa wouldn’t help with increasing the ability to get oil out by rail, the province would find a way to buy additional rail cars itself.
She also announced an exemption from some carbon tax costs for drillers and said there were six projects under consideration for government investment to partially upgrade bitumen in Alberta, making it easier to transport and refine.
On Tuesday, the government announced it would increase its commitment to two petrochemical programs, raising the available incentives from $1 billion to $2.1 billion.