An economist says one of the simplest ways British Columbia can get its fair share of oil pipeline revenues is by imposing higher property taxes on those projects.
"In fact, they have a special classification for pipelines and they can really bump up that property tax on pipelines if they want to get more revenue," Jack Mintz, with the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy, said Thursday.
Under that scenario, the higher tax costs would be passed along to the producers that would use Enbridge Inc.'s $6-billion Northern Gateway line or Kinder Morgan's $4.1-billion Trans Mountain expansion to ship crude from Alberta to the West Coast for export to Asia.
"Of course what happens is the industry starts getting squeezed," Mintz said.
However, Mintz said he'd rather see a more conciliatory approach to figuring out how the benefits and risks of West Coast oil-pipelines ought to split up between Alberta and B.C.
"I do think that B.C. right now has instruments that they can use that would be appropriate and they should then think about doing that if they want to go in that direction," he said. "I think it would be better for all concerned, including both Alberta and B.C. and the industry, if there's kind of a deal made."
Another option, which Mintz does not endorse, is imposing "transit fees" on oil moving between provinces. Such a move raises all sorts of constitutional issues and would set a bad precedent, he said. "Then the next thing you can do is have a tax on highway trucks going across provinces or putting a tax on railways going across provinces and we certainly don't want to start doing this with the United States, where we have all sorts of pipelines going down to the United States," he said.
Alberta Premier Alison Redford has flatly dismissed the idea of sharing royalties with B.C.
