On March 25th, Liberal Finance Minister Bill Morneau said support for oil and gas employers was coming in “hours” or “days,” certainly not "weeks."
That was three months ago.
I asked the Liberals on April 28th during the first virtual sitting of the House of Commons and was told the Business Development Bank of Canada loans would be “rolled out as quickly as possible.” A month and a half later and still nothing.
I asked again on June 11th and the Liberals still had no answer when small and medium employers can apply for these emergency loans.
The CEO of Cenovus Energy says “We’ve been hearing for weeks that support is coming. Weeks have passed and the industry is still waiting”
The Newfoundland and Labrador Oil and Gas Industries Association said “We are in crisis mode. Help has to happen YESTERDAY … It is absolutely critical that the federal government helps us now.” That was the 2nd week of May.
The Saskatchewan Energy Minister says the measures announced by the Federal Government so far leaves a “gaping hole” in terms of where support is actually needed.
On June 18th, literally hours after the last COVID-19 parliamentary accountability session ended to start the summer recess, the Liberals removed the oil and gas loans with an end of day web page update. They 'merged' the oil and gas specific loans into the medium sized loans for all sectors. Their disdain for Parliamentary accountability could not be more apparent.
The removal of the oil and gas specific loan program proves the Liberals never had any intention of helping struggling oil and gas employers. It was all just smoke and mirrors. Despite the Finance Minister's claims that he understood the unique global challenges, and the disproportionate damage impacting the oil and gas sector, he and the rest of the Liberal government kept true to their ‘death by delay’ tactics, putting out false hope for imminent assistance - before removing this program three months later.
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