The US is a net oil exporter. If fossil fuel companies were so influential, wouldn't we expect them to be in favour of less fossil fuel production elsewhere?
Instead the what seems to be influential is the average Joe who's complaining about the price at the pump.
All the blather about Canadian "trade surplus" is actually oil.
US companies owning that infra sell that oil under market price, to their US corp divisions. The CEO, upper execs are usually American, and so their large salaries, and all corporate profits all flow to the US parent corp.
Canada of course sees some taxes per barrel of oil, and local employment, but when you remove all this, Canada has a massive trade deficit with the US
In that case, we should definitely reserve judgement on the weird payment stipulations then. The oil industry probably hates that the government is doing this, and we shouldn't cast aspersions on them.
The US is a net oil exporter. If fossil fuel companies were so influential, wouldn't we expect them to be in favour of less fossil fuel production elsewhere?
Instead the what seems to be influential is the average Joe who's complaining about the price at the pump.