energy

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Earlier this month the Fraser Institute published a report sharply critical of one of the flagship policies of the Ontario government, namely the Ontario Green Energy Act (GEA). We found that the Act is costing Ontario over $5 billion annually but yields negligible environmental benefits, and that equivalent or greater benefits could have been achieved using conventional pollution control measures at less than one-tenth the cost.


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Carbon taxes are once again dominating the discussion over energy policy in Alberta, where Environment Minister Diana McQueen has proposed a sharp hike to Alberta’s carbon levy. Presently, large emitters in Alberta are required to reduce greenhouse gas emission intensity (that is, emissions per unit of production) by 12 per cent, or face a levy of $15 for every tonne they come up short. The new proposal would hike the emission intensity target to 40 per cent, and raise the levy to $40. Nice round numbers, to be sure, but extremely ambitious ones.


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Michael Binnion, CEO of Questerre Energy and head of the Quebec Oil and Gas Association, has a great blog post up in which he discusses the impact that equalization payments have on Quebec's energy and natural resource policy.

Looking at Quebec's budget, Binnion observes:


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BC’s governing Liberals presented a Throne Speech recently that included an unexpected announcement: the creation of a BC Prosperity Fund similar in concept to Alberta’s Heritage Fund. BC’s fund is meant to capitalize on the future opportunities from natural gas development. If done correctly, the Prosperity Fund could be a huge benefit to both current and future British Columbians. As with many things though, the devil is in the details.


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On November 6, 2012, the citizens of the United States decided to maintain, essentially, the status quo: they re-elected Barack Obama as President, left the United States House of Representatives solidly in Republican hands, and left the United States Senate under the control of the Democratic Party. But as with all U.S. elections, there are implications for Canada, which, for better or worse, is usually pulled by the tides of American regulation and economic prosperity – or the lack thereof.


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In the debate over whether the partially state-owned energy company, China’s CNOOC, should be given the go-ahead by Ottawa to take over Calgary-based Nexen, there is the danger that the discussion will be cast in an adversarial east-west context.


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The recent decision by the federal government to block a proposed takeover of Progress Energy Resources by Petronas, a Malaysian state-owned company, increases the likelihood of a rejection of the pending acquisition of Nexen by CNOOC, a Chinese state-owned oil company. It also follows the federal government’s action denying the takeover of Potash Corporation by BHP, a privately owned Australian company.  These developments justify reconsideration of whether the net benefit test used by the Canadian government to assess foreign takeovers of Canadian companies makes economic sense.