Justin Trudeau’s federal budget update stirred some anger in Canada’s oil-rich West.
Alberta’s Finance Minister Joe Ceci, while welcoming corporate tax breaks announced Wednesday, said he was disappointed that the urgent need to ease a dramatic crude-shipping glut and price crash wasn’t addressed.
The tax changes that will allow businesses to write off capital investments more quickly will help oil producers, he said at a press conference in Calgary. But Alberta asked for increased capacity to ship oil by rail and “no action was taken.”
“The crisis happening in this province affects the whole country but they are speaking a different language,” he said. “We must get our product to tidewater and nothing today addresses that.”
Brett Wilson, the Calgary-based investor famous for his role in the Dragons’ Den reality show, told BNN Bloomberg that Trudeau “is frustrating Alberta, he isn’t acknowledging what we need, and that is solutions for the made-in-Canada discount.”
The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers said the oil industry “did not receive the same benefit as some other sectors, and we have fallen behind relative to the U.S.”
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