For some folk, no matter how much the government taxes and spends, it’s never enough.

So, when war breaks out in the Middle East and energy prices jump, you can be certain that in Alberta, the unions will demand the imposition of a windfall tax on the province’s oil and gas companies.

There’s no waiting for the companies’ quarterly earnings to show big profits before the news release is issued. We’re talking days, not months. The bombs just started falling on Iran when the Alberta Federation of Labour demanded the province impose just such a tax and then hand out proceeds to citizens as a subsidy, even before anyone, anywhere, is out of pocket.

“The huge profits that our biggest oil companies are about to reap will be largely unearned,” announced AFL President Gil McGowan. “These profits will be the result of the war-related spike in the global price of oil and will have nothing to do with the companies’ strategy or their investment in production or jobs. This is the very definition of windfall profits.”

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Unearned? How are those potential profits unearned? Didn’t these companies invest massive amounts of money and employ thousands of Albertans to be positioned to take advantage of higher oil prices if and when they arrived?

That’s the volatile nature of energy exploration — the risks are high and sometimes so are the rewards. Grab the cash from companies in the good times and they won’t hang around in the bad. As for the effects of the Iran war, who knows what might happen to oil prices in another few weeks, never mind by this time next year.

If there is a long-lasting financial windfall, Albertans will benefit without any additional tax. That’s what the current royalty regime ensures. Every dollar increase in the annual price of a barrel provides another $700 million to the province’s coffers. That’s hardly chump change.

We’d certainly welcome it, considering the 2026-27 budget, kicking in April 1, predicts a $9.4-billion shortfall. The province assumes an average oil price of $60.50 a barrel, so if prices hang in around the $75 mark for an entire year, we’ll end up with a surplus. But that’s a whole barrelful of ifs.

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Of course, McGowan is hardly the first activist to lecture the Alberta government on how to deal with the energy industry. It’s instructive to look back at how some of those previous demands for extra taxation turned out.

In 2014, the left-leaning Parkland Institute came to a similar conclusion as today’s AFL in a study entitled Billions Forgone. It claimed the Alberta government was making serious mistakes in not grabbing more money from companies involved in oilsands development.

This was its summation: “Alberta has a low royalty rate compared to rates in countries that have similar quality of resource. Alberta takes from 25 per cent to 40 per cent of profit, equivalent to 10 per cent of gross revenue. Venezuela, which has the most comparable resource, takes 40 per cent of gross revenue — four times as much as Alberta.”

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How has that pronouncement stood the test of time? Back then, the province raked in about $8 billion a year in royalties. A decade later, it was almost $21 billion. That dramatic increase was due to major projects becoming more profitable and therefore hitting a higher royalty payout ratio along with ever-increasing production.

So, imagine if the government had taken Parkland’s advice and quadrupled royalty payments to bring them in line with Venezuela.

How’s that country’s oil industry these days? Booming, perhaps? Not in the least.

Thanks to a massive revenue grab by its socialist government, a lack of any investment and rampant corruption, the country with the world’s largest known reserves isn’t even hitting one million barrels a day. Alberta produces more than four times as much.

Meanwhile, Venezuela’s former president awaits trial in New York for drug trafficking.

Alberta got it right back then. It still does.

Chris Nelson is a weekly columnist.

© Calgary Herald