Natural Resource Revenues

Debate on the question of who should receive the surplus revenue generated by natural-resource exploitation -- Ottawa or the provinces -- is usually carried on in terms of history, politics custom, law, social values, and environmental considerations. This collection of essays presents analyses of the question from the economist’s point of view.

The essays fall into three groups. In the first of these, the authors examine the taxation of the mining and energy industries and show how the method of taxation chosen by different levels of government -- federal or provincial -- may be “non-neutral,” distorting private output and timing decisions. The second group consists of careful case studies of the effects of particular natural resource taxation measures; the third focuses directly on the question of provincial and federal entitlement to resource revenues.

Although arguments are advanced for linking the right to tax to the responsibility for management and control (at present vested in the provinces), most of the contributors would agree that the provinces should be regarded as stewards and bailiffs, not landlords; as rent collectors and managers, not “rentiers” and owners.