Pointing to the feds’ April 17 announcement that it will spend $1.7-billion to clean up orphan wells in Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan—$1-billion of which will go to Alberta—Mr. Marshall, national climate program manager with Environmental Defence, noted that The Globe and Mail previously reported that the province expected the feds to provide $15-billion in relief to the industry.
“The package we saw [on April 17] was somewhat of a relief for people who want to see action on climate change, because the demands were much higher; it could’ve been a $15-billion package that was focused on increased production, rather than environmental measures,” he said. “These are still subsidies that we don’t entirely support, but it was much smaller than we thought, and at least the focus is on environmental improvement.”
“What worries me, is that there are still open doors for the government to shovel literally tens of billions of dollars into the oil and gas sector,” he said. Mr. Marshall said he would “reserve judgement” on the overall impact this will have on Ottawa’s climate change agenda, but said he doesn’t “trust” the government to ultimately “change course” and withdraw its financial support from the oil and gas industry.
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