FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
4 December 2020
Reacting to the announcement on giving $45M to an oil and gas company with no guarantee of return, NDP Leader Alison Coffin is concerned over how the province is spending money. The Liberal Government’s announcement comes with no guarantees the project will be completed, and parameters would need to be met for the project to be viable. At the funding announcement in September, Federal Liberal Minister O’Regan expressed that the money needed to go to workers.
“Workers in this province need some level of assurance that they can continue to live and work in this province for the foreseeable future,” said Coffin. “What we saw announced was handing over a large sum of money to an oil and gas company that’s projecting $12M in shareholder dividends to be issued in quarter 4. How does that make sense?”
For 13 years the Auditor General has been calling on the provincial government to diversify the province’s reliance on oil and gas revenues. Successive Liberal and Tory governments have ignored this directive, and have put workers in this situation. With project startup being dependent on ‘conditions’ that were not expressly defined, the question remains will there be another ask from Husky.
“I ask – is this the best allocation of the budget to truly help people in this province?”
“$45M for 330 jobs that may or may not be there passed 2022 is quite concerning,” Coffin said. “We have been given no information as to what these ‘conditions’ are: will market prices need to increase? Will we need to throw more money at the oil and gas company again in 2022?”
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For further information, contact Eddy St. Coeur, Director of Communications, NDP Caucus at 729-2137 (o), or eddystcoeur@gov.nl.ca