Letter from Canada: Risk of windfall profit tax grows

Governments around the world are under pressure to implement windfall profit taxes on oil and gas companies, and Canada may be poised to follow suit

The UK and India have introduced windfall taxes on oil and gas company profits over the past three months, while the US is seriously considering the move. Italy, Romania and Spain have introduced a levy for their power producers, while the EU is mulling a tax for the bloc as a whole. The core argument for these taxes, according to Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and many others, is that profits are presently extraordinarily high simply due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its impact on global oil and gas markets. The companies have done nothing to earn them. The Canadian government has yet to indicate any plans for a windfall tax, but in early May federal environment ministe