Taxpayers can bail out oil firms again

Go easy on those poor oil companies now finally being asked to pay up the $268 million in overdue municipal taxes. It's not like they are like ordinary hardworking citizens where things like that are aggressively enforced in a timely manner.

If forced to follow the law they may have to lower, or heaven forbid, eliminate the executive bonuses and generous perks. We cannot let that happen. Who knows what these people could do if you get between them and their entitlement.

I suggest the UPC government step in and offer some economic concessions to those companies that have a belated handle on ethics. Like earlier this quarter, when the government eased the burden for all those companies that abandoned those pesky used-up wells and shifted the obligation to the aforementioned citizens.

This time, the government might suggest, kindly and delicately of course, that if they help out the municipalities they are working in, the government might take 50 per cent off the revenue owing until the amount is recovered by the offending corporation. I'm sure my fellow Albertan taxpayers would come together, as we always do in times of trouble, and happily endorse this suggestion. Right, folks? Rick Nenn, Edmonton

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