What Else Isn't Fair Shared in Alberta?

Some intelligent Albertans "get it" that the most serious "fairness" issues in Alberta involve renewable resources, not petroleum. When are we going to start the panel for fairness of renewable resources? A fair question for Minister Morten. I will be fighting to get a seat on that panel.

Alberta Outdoors: Rocky Mountain House

by Bob Scammell

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Just off the pavement south of Rocky Mountain House, a waggish welder has installed stylized seven-point royal elk antlers and painted eyes on a working pumpjack. Nodding and bowing, the sculpture is the perfect symbol of the “royal” royalty rhubarb now raging in the province and, for outdoors people, also a reminder that, in Alberta, renewable resources always bow to the non-renewable.

Over the years, when writing about the gross mismanagement and under-valuing of our non-renewable resources (public land, water, timber, wildlife), I would occasionally add my hunch that we probably were not receiving what we should for our oil and gas either. For that I took sufficient flak from flacks of the oil and gas industry that it is at least gratifying to see that the Royalty Review Committee, followed by Fred Dunn, the Auditor-General, have come to the same conclusion after much consideration and study.

It is of particular concern that there were much earlier reports to government, large parts of which were censored, that also concluded that increases in royalty rates were in order. Even though all Albertans have a right to an opinion, we are not here going to get into the wailing and agonizing over whether, if we insist on receiving our fair share, we’ll kill the fowl that lays the golden goose eggs.

What we will get into is the surprising new life the royalty review debates have given, among very informed outdoors people, to long-standing and never-ending concerns about whether Alberta is negligent in its management of , and grossly under-valuing our renewable natural resources, the assets essential to outdoors recreations.

Recently I was at a meeting of a totally unrelated committee of the Alberta Fish and Game Association attended by half a dozen of its past presidents. During lunch the usual kibitzing quickly turned to a discussion of oil and gas royalty reviews, then quickly overflowed into concern over the increasing pace of fire sales of the 54 per cent of Alberta that is public land and the incredible confusion caused by two parallel systems for the public to gain recreational access to public land held under grazing lease

You do not listen long to these people on the subject of public land before you hear someone wondering when, if ever, anyone is going to find out at least how much money we are wasting annually when we allow grazing leaseholders of public land to keep the surface rights payments made by oil and gas developers and producers. Current AFGA president, Maurice Nadeau, was also present and reminded everyone of the constant threat, real or implied, in this issue: claw back the money and the ranchers will shut off all access to hundreds of thousands of acres of prime recreational land, particularly in southern Alberta.

 The old goose and golden eggs argument again, plus threats from “renters” of resources that belong to the public. If the AFGA has ever pulled in its horns because of the perceived ranchers’ threat, then it is one of the more blatant examples of paid hunting, an evil that is contrary to AFGA policy.
The sad fact is that since we started living off the fat of the land – our oil and gas -- we have never paid much attention to our renewable natural resources. We have been mismanaging, neglecting and wasting them, plus seriously damaging and destroying much of our public land in the drive to explore for, extract and sell our oil and gas and – yes – timber as fast as we can.

The possibility raised by the current royalty review and the Auditor General that considerable government mismanagement afflicts oil and gas has reopened the eyes of outdoors people to the gross waste and undervaluing of our renewable natural resources.

But, after the heavy muzzle blast and recoil of the Royalty Review report, the government will probably be too gunshy to have any committee any time soon looking into stumpage fees in the forestry industry, grazing lease fees for public land and hunting and fishing licence fees, particularly for non-residents.

But all that might interest Fred Dunn, our Auditor General, and I know he would rise to the challenge of just finding out how many millions of buckshee, boondoggle bucks per annum we have been paying for how many years to mere grazing leaseholders for oil and gas surface rights payments to land we all own, our public land.

On other pavement close to that royal elk rack pumpjack, you have to beware of loaded logging trucks, scant minutes apart, careening both ways, hauling considerable of my heritage – and yours – somewhere else. It makes you wonder whether there will remain enough of our renewable natural resources to help sustain us when the pumpjacks stop nodding and bowing and the oil and gas is long gone.