B.C. changed law to shield oil and gas royalty payments from public view

British Columbia changed its freedom of information laws to prevent the public from knowing how much individual fossil fuel companies pay in royalties for publicly owned oil and gas, less than a year after releasing that data in response to formal requests.

The province stated the reason for the change: "improve confidentiality." The companies benefiting from the shield include Shell, ARC, Petronas and Ovintiv, all dramatically increasing drilling of methane gas and condensate in the Peace River region in recent years.

Much of the methane gas is destined for liquefaction and export at a facility in Kitimat, while condensate heads to Alberta to dilute bitumen for refineries in the southern U.S. or Port of Vancouver tanker loading. As drilling has ramped up, royalty revenues to the public have plummeted by hundreds of millions of dollars, and the government badly overestimated what the industry would pay—a miscalculation that drew criticism of Premier David Eby and the NDP.

When The Tyee filed a freedom of information request late last year seeking a 10-year royalty breakdown by company, the response was telling: 30 of 50 pages were blank, long lists of dollar figures redacted, with only company names remaining. The other 20 pages held scattered government emails mentioning royalties and select slides from Ministry of Energy presentations showing production figures for some companies and aggregate taxes paid.

Rob Botterell, the Green Party MLA for Saanich North and the Islands who led drafting B.C.'s freedom of information legislation in the early 1990s, questioned the logic of the change. "I'm scratching my head trying to think of what the public policy reason is that on the one hand you would disclose stumpage and on the other hand you would not disclose information about royalties," Botterell told The Tyee. Stumpage fees—what logging companies pay for trees cut on public land—remain accessible through a government database with company-specific breakdowns.

"When you don't have a good reason, can't explain why you're not releasing it, of course that reduces trust in government," Botterell said. "The assumption of lots of folks is... you must be hiding something."