Alberta Enterprise Group

Oilpatch support for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith's agenda ballooned after she won her party's leadership and put the so-called RStar program — a plan to give tax breaks to energy companies for fulfilling cleanup work they are already obliged to do — high on the government agenda.

Alberta's United Conservative Party government is facing growing criticism for a plan to give oil companies a royalty credit for cleaning up their old wells.

Critics fear Alberta's new United Conservative premier is preparing to bring in a program that would use billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded royalty breaks to subsidize energy companies to fulfil their legal duty and clean up old wells.