LOBBY WATCH — A senior bureaucrat responsible for tax policy at Finance Canada has met one specific collection of stakeholders more than any other in the run-up to Budget 2023. Assistant deputy minister MIODRAG JOVANOVIC's lobby registry dance card since November's fiscal update features a long line of energy companies. Jovanovic has met Imperial Oil four times, Enbridge and Cenovus twice, Canadian Natural Resources and Suncor once, and also the Pathways Alliance that represents the six largest oil sands producers. He's also met with three times with the Cement Association of Canada. — The common thread: Pre-budget submissions endorsed by those companies focus in part on a planned tax credit that will subsidize carbon capture utilization and storage — the name for technologies said to help reduce emissions by storing carbon instead of belching it out. Here's the Pathways submission. Here's Enbridge's contribution. Industry is all in on CCUS. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that threatens to lure green energy investment away from Canada offers carbon capture incentives that could dwarf the made-in-Canada tax credit that's been in the works since 2021 — but is still at the drawing board. — That incentive, in brief: The feds want to encourage investment in CCUS by offering generous refundable tax credits for the capital cost of acquiring the equipment required to get those projects online. The current proposal would set the credit rates at between 37.5 and 60 per cent, depending on the expenditure. The lobbyists want more. — Elevator pitch: Here's how the cement lobby frames Canada's CCUS opportunity: "If Canada is to capitalize on the economic competitiveness benefits of being a leader in the emerging trillion-dollar CCUS market, while also supporting domestic 2030 climate targets, it must offer bolder support for first movers building CCUS projects in Canada." The message to Ottawa: "If you subsidize it, they will come." — The oil patch's take: Playbook got on the horn with MARK CAMERON, a former policy director to STEPHEN HARPER and executive director of nonprofit Canadians for Clean Prosperity who was later Alberta's deputy minister for policy coordination between 2019 and 2022. Now, Cameron is vice-president of external relations for the Pathways Alliance. He's in Houston for the massive CERAWeek energy conference. Cameron explained the industry's argument to policymakers on the Hill. The proposed federal investment tax credit was "definitely a good start," he said, but the IRA blew up the landscape. Biden's game-changing law is the talk of the town in Houston this week as investors rethink their strategies and zero in on American projects. Pathways members want to expand the Canadian credit. They want not just capital costs covered, but ongoing operating costs, too. Is the message getting through? "We definitely think they're listening. We think they understand the challenge," Cameron said. "It remains to be seen how much they will be able to invest. The fiscal capacity of the Canadian government is not the same as the U.S. Treasury." Translation: A tax credit that covers operational expenditures could get real expensive real quick. Budget 2022 already pegged the cost of the credit at C$2.6 billion over five years starting in 2022–23, including C$1.5 billion in 2026–27 — and then C$1.5 billion annually until 2030. — The dissenting view: To the surprise of precisely nobody, Greenpeace is skeptical of the industry's commitment to emissions reductions — and slammed CBC's The Current for airing a long interview with Cenovus CEO ALEX POURBAIX on March 6. Greenpeace called CCUS a "highly questionable" technology that could divert federal support from green energy: "If the government is required to heavily subsidize this project, it could limit the funding available for development and deployment of renewable energy projects." — What's next: The budget. Energy lobbyists will put Freeland's 2023 plan to the Ctrl-F test, poring over the fine print beneath every mention of CCUS. TWENTY-FIVE — That's how many questions on foreign interference PIERRE POILIEVRE asked Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU during Wednesday's QP. The Bloc Québécois added another six, and the NDP two. Indy MP KEVIN VUONG capped the session with another, to the delight of the Conservative benches. — 3: The number of opposition questions, all from the NDP, about literally anything else: one on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, a second on gender-based violence, and a third on the government's official languages bill.
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