Big oil companies eligible for millions from Canada's coronavirus bailout to clean up sites
  • 3 years ago
The Alberta government says some of Canada’s biggest oil and gas companies will be eligible for millions of dollars in federal grants to pay contractors that clean up their aging sites as part of a coronavirus job-creation program. The Alberta government created the clean up program after the Trudeau government announced about $2 billion in federal funding to help the industry clean up its older sites, including in Saskatchewan and British Columbia, and reduce methane pollution. The program is taking a step toward addressing major financial, environmental and economic liabilities in western provinces as inactive and abandoned wells grow faster than the active ones. The total clean up costs for the aging sites could cost in the tens of billions of dollars, while industry has only set aside a fraction of that total, potentially leaving Canadian taxpayers on the hook for the bill. As Julia Wong reports, experts say the rules in place right now in Alberta are not enough
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