Layton/Harris/Cleary promise to boost federal taxes on provincial OilCo

Newfoundland and Labrador's new oil company - doing work offshore as partner on the multi-billion dollar Hebron and White Rose projects - will be paying more corporate taxes to the federal government under a New Democrat federal government.

According to the Telegram, Layton hit one of those points during a campaign stop in St. John's on Friday:

Layton said one promise he is making is a rollback on corporate tax cuts to banks and oil companies, which he says both the Conservatives and Liberals have supported.

Layton used the example of Exxon, but evidently he didn't realise the provincial government under Premier Danny Williams is now one of the oil companies he plans to tax more heavily.

In a separate campaign appearance, Layton pledged to "honour the Atlantic Accord", apparently in reference to the 2005 federal transfer side deal between the federal and provincial governments. 

But his blanket pledge also included the real Accord, the 1985 deal signed by Brian Mulroney and Brian Peckford that establishes joint management of the offshore between St. John's and Ottawa and which sees the provincial government collect 100% of royalties from the offshore as if the resources were on land.

Under clause 41 of the 1985 Atlantic Accord, provincial or federal Crown corporations are taxed like all other companies:

Crown corporations and agencies involved in oil and gas resource activities in the offshore area
shall be subject to all taxes, royalties and levies.

OilCo, the oil subsidiary of the province's still unnamed energy corporation, is incorporated like all other corporations in the private sector, even though its shares are owned 100% by the Crown.  The company also isn't a Crown agent.

While in St. John's, Layton also pledged to transfer federally-owned shares in the Hibernia project to Newfoundland and Labrador "over a period of time" [Telegram story on Layton at Memorial University, not online.  CP story here.]

Those shares, representing 8.5% of the project, would also be handled by the province's energy corporation.  They would also be subject to the NDP's increased taxation.

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Another bad day on the campaign trail

Federal leader New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton and former provincial party leader Jack Harris have trouble blithely dismissing Ryan Cleary's opinion about New Democrats or about the need to maybe remove Newfoundland and Labrador from "Confederation's death grip". [h/t to nottawa]

Scroll down in the nottawa link and you find another bit of the story as it unfolded, when Cleary scrummed:

the principles of the ND party, NDP, NDP best reflect who I am and what I stand for. I believe that Jack Layton is the best leader in this country to bring us all together. To bring Newfoundland and Labrador into Confederation.

To bring Newfoundland and Labrador into Confederation?

Evidently, Cleary missed at least one little piece of history.

 

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Electoral shocks and nots

Shock:  Newspaper editor Craig Westcott's the federal Conservative candidate in St. John's East. If you want an ox gored, then call Craig. He is best known locally for his criticism of Premier Danny Williams. That criticism earned Westcott some notoriety.

Not:  Former auditor general and provincial cabinet minister Beth Marshall is out.

Not:  Former provincial New Democratic Party leader Jack Harris will run for the Orange in St. John's East.

Shock:  Merv Wiseman, current president of the fur breeders association and former president of the provincial agriculture federation, is running for the federal Conservatives and hammering the Green Shift in his first foray into the media.  Wiseman tried for the Provincial Conservative nod in the recent Baie Verte White Bay by-election and lost.

Meanwhile, the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture is running for the Liberals.

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The inevitable headline

First this.

Watch next for Jack Harris to announce he'll run for the Dippers, which will make the next headline, followed by the next one: Harris wins in landslide.

Ironically, Jack Harris was first elected as a member of parliament in a Jurassic Park battle where he was the furry, agile little mammal as the alternative to two dinosaurs.

Now, Harris will likely be one of the dinosaurs, but with no alternative, voters will have an extremely limited choice.

The thing about inevitable headlines is that they aren't all inevitable; the other thing about them is that if the first one turns out to be inevitable, the rest will just fall in line.

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