Comment 116525

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted February 13, 2016 at 14:05:41 in reply to Comment 116522

The subsidies are in the form of tax breaks for exploration, investment and other business activities. Some of these are even specific to the oil and gas or mining industries.

Here's a National Post discussion of the debate over whether the fossil fuel industry is subsidized or not.

http://www.nationalobserver.com/2015/09/...

Those who claim it is not subsidized don't want to count tax breaks as subsidies, even though most people would understand tax breaks on something as a way for government to encourage it by reducing its cost (i.e. a subsidy). And even the WTO defines tax breaks as subsidies!

And here's a list of some of these subsidies (in the form of tax breaks):

Canadian Development Expense ($478 million), Canadian Exploration Expense ($233 million), Accelerated Capital Cost Allowance ($300 million), Investment Tax Credit ($100 million), and Liquefied Natural Gas capital cost allowance ($50 million).

Federal and provincial governments could legally exclude the fossil fuel industry from these tax credits if they wanted to eliminate public subsidies from the fossil fuel industry. For example, the mineral exploration tax credit explicitly excludes the oil and gas industry (as well as coal).

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2016-02-13 14:34:15

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