Several weeks ago, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation highlighted a couple very disjointed decisions by the federal government concerning Bombardier, Ford and TransCanada.

Since that time, we’ve received an update from the federal government about the situation.

Many readers will recall that the federal government decided to change the regulatory rules on TransCanada halfway through its National Energy Board review for the Energy East pipeline project.

Ottawa suddenly decided it wanted TransCanada to go through an “upstream and downstream” emissions review. Shortly after Ottawa changed the rules, TransCanada pulled the plug on the project.

Back in December we noted that Ottawa’s decision led us to ask the Trudeau government for research on “upstream and downstream” emissions it had conducted before handing Bombardier and Ford nearly $500 million in tax dollars in 2017.

We figured the question was relevant. After all, Bombardier builds private jets that burn jet fuel and Ford builds vehicles that burn gasoline. If the Trudeau government is concerned about emissions from the Energy East pipeline project, shouldn’t we expect Ottawa to apply the same standard to companies that build vehicles that burn oil and gas products?

Surprisingly, the Trudeau government told us there was no emissions review for Ford and the materials related to Bombardier were confidential.

As we suspected there likely wasn’t any kind of emissions review for Bombardier, we reworded our information request slightly and sent in another search request for documents.

This time a staff person in Ottawa responded: “I regret to inform you that a search found no records relevant to the subject of your request.”

In other words, there was no “upstream and downstream” emissions review for Bombardier. Strange isn’t it?

The Trudeau government seems to have deep concerns about emissions from Alberta’s energy sector – even suggesting Canada needs to “phase out” our oil sands – but yet the federal government seems to have no problem with flowing hundreds of millions of tax dollars to companies that build vehicles that burn oil and gas products.

One has to wonder what Minister Kent Hehr (Calgary), Minister Amarjeet Sohi (Edmonton) and other Liberals from Alberta think about the situation. Do they think it’s fair that Ottawa is putting regulatory roadblocks in front of our energy sector while rolling out the red carpet – along with hundreds of millions of tax dollars – for Bombardier and Ford?

This situation is actually part of a bigger problem for Canada – too often our governments obstruct or reject massive resource development projects. Back in 2016 the Financial Post tallied a list of 35 major resource projects in Canada that were in limbo. Combined, these projects represented a staggering $129 billion worth of investment.

Think of the thousands of jobs those projects could create for Canadians employed in the trades or the spinoff effects as those workers spend money on buying homes, going out for dinner and supporting businesses in other sectors of our economy.

And let’s not forget the billions in tax revenues that governments would receive. Back in 2013, TransCanada estimated its Energy East project alone would contribute $10 billion in tax revenue for governments. To put that in perspective, that’s more than double the City of Calgary’s annual budget.

As our nation continues to treat our resource sector with apathy, we’re also facing serious cost pressures when it comes to infrastructure, rising government debt levels and an aging population to name a few. Where will governments find the money to pay for those challenges if they keep obstructing major projects that employ people contribute billions in tax dollars?

The answer is you – governments will just end up raising your taxes. If you don’t like the sound of that, perhaps you need to start telling your politicians to start helping the economy instead of hurting it.

Colin Craig is the Interim Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
This column was published in the January 17, 2018 edition of the Calgary Herald