Abstract This article focuses on the Canadian government's intervention in the accounting controversy involving the Petroleum Incentive Program. Canada's National Energy Program (NEP) was announced with fanfare in October 1980. If the NEP worked according to plan, Canada would eventually find enough new oil to be energy self-sufficient, and it would be owned by Canadians. The NEP had a number of provisions to accomplish these goals. The first was a new tax of eight percent on revenue produced by existing oil and gas wells called the Petroleum and Gas Revenue Tax (PGRT). Secondly, to offset the impact of the PGRT on Canadian-owned companies that were willing to explore in the frontier areas, the federal government introduced the Petroleum Incentive Program grant system. The grants could be as high as 80 percent of the exploration expenditures, but to receive the top amount the company doing the exploration had to be substantially Canadian-owned, and do its exploration in lands in the far north or off the east coast. The oil industry in Calgary, Alberta listened to the budget speech of October 29, 1980 with particular interest since they knew the NEP would affect them profoundly.
Robert T. Sprouse (Thu,) studied this question.