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........

© Calgary Herald