Notley says royalty review won’t raise costs now

He says he will do so if Alberta premier Rachel Notley resigns.

The four-member royalty review panel, which has been working on the review since last September, is trying to determine how best to make sure both Alberta and the companies operating within the province can both earn their “fair share” of hydrocarbon revenues.

The final report was due at the end of December, but Notley says it won’t be ready until the end of January.

O’Leary, formerly of CBC-TV’s “Dragon’s Den”, has said he is so concerned about what Notley’s NDP government is doing to Alberta’s economy, he’ll invest $1 million in the oilpatch if she’ll quit.

Oil has plummeted to about $30 (U.S.) a barrel from a high of $100 for West Texas Intermediate in 2014. So if now we’ve got a Toronto wealthy businessman who wants to tell Alberta voters how to vote, I say, bring it on, “Notley said in a press conference on Tuesday”.

Now projecting a $5.4 billion deficit in 2016-17 with an average WTI price of $61 for the year, Notley acknowledged the government will “go back to the drawing board” for projections in Budget 2016 as oil prices continue to slide.

Alberta Party Leader Greg Clark said, “the real killer in all of this from the very beginning has been uncertainty”.

“I have a lot of faith in the panel, and I hope the NDs listen to their advice even if what the panel reports doesn’t fit their political ideology”, he said in a news release.

“The disincentives to growth will hopefully be minimized to some extent in the new process”, she said.

The call for change came as investors braced for another tough day on the markets.

The government has already signaled that some or all of a dozen programs set to begin in the 2016-17 fiscal year may be delayed, including plans to reduce school fees and fund rural bus service.