Around 62 per cent of Canadians would support a federal windfall tax on above-average profits made by oil and gas companies, a new poll has found. The survey, carried out by Ledger on behalf of the David Suzuki Foundation, 350.org and Climate Action Network Canada, comes as Western governments have increasingly turned to windfall taxes to help populations deal with soaring energy prices.
In 2022, the European Union levied a temporary windfall tax on surplus profits from oil and gas companies after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine led to record revenue. And over a dozen of the block’s members, plus the United Kingdom, have amended or proposed new tax policies to deal with excess profits and soaring prices. The Ledger survey, which polled more than 1,500 Canadian adults online, found a third of respondents strongly agreed Canada should introduce a similar tax on oil and gas companies’ historically high profits. Another 29 per cent somewhat agreed with the ide