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CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Viewpoints ID: #63265 Hard What to Do With the Royalty Windfall

Read the following opinion column from a website.

I believe this province is about to repeat an old mistake. Oil and gas royalties have beaten the forecast for a second straight year, and the budget debate has split into two camps. One wants the surplus locked away for future generations; the other wants it spent now in the Treaty communities and small towns where the wells actually are. I think neither camp should be allowed to win outright, and the law we pass this spring should say so.

Lucinda Moisan, a former deputy finance minister, argues for saving first. A government that spends each royalty cheque the moment it lands, she says, is borrowing from the next slump. She wants a set percentage of royalties moved automatically into a fund run at arm’s length from cabinet, with strict rules that keep future governments away from the principal. I find that logic hard to dismiss. Lionel Chartrand, who runs job training programs with Treaty communities close to the oil fields, argues that her plan leaves out the present. Abandoned well sites, crowded homes and waiting lists for trades training are not problems for the future, he says. He wants a large slice of each windfall spent on those needs before prices fall again and attention moves elsewhere.

Thanh Vuong, a public budget specialist at a university in Calgary, says there is a middle route, and she has drafted one. Her law would require a minimum yearly payment into the fund, while a separate community account would hold a fixed percentage for housing, cleanup and skills in the regions that produce the oil. Both would come with published rules for withdrawals during a recession. Blaine Hartman, who is mayor in a town with more wells than stoplights, points out a local problem. During every boom, he says, trucks wear out the town’s roads and its water plant runs at the limit, yet municipalities see little of the royalty money.

My father drove a service truck through the bust of the 1980s, and I still remember the winter our main street emptied out. That memory makes me side with Moisan on saving. Still, Chartrand convinces me that cleanup and training cannot wait for a better decade, and Vuong’s design gives both sides a written guarantee. I would add Hartman’s towns to the community account and pass the whole package before prices turn.

Using the drop-down menu (▾), choose the best option according to the information given on the website.

This column is mainly about 1.
.

Who most clearly objects that a savings fund ignores problems that exist today? 2.
.

Lucinda Moisan’s position would most likely be supported by 3.
.

What outcome does Thanh Vuong’s design call for? 4.
.

The columnist’s attitude toward the two camps is best described as 5.
.

The following is a comment by a visitor to the website page. Complete the comment by choosing the best option to fill in each blank.

Evangeline, this is the most useful column on royalties I have seen in years. Lucinda Moisan wants the fund run 6.
, which surprised me a little. She would also set strict rules that keep future governments away from 7.
, and my neighbours would agree. My sister teaches in a town near the wells, and she says half her students want trades seats that do not exist yet. Thanh Vuong would publish clear rules for 8.
, a detail I missed on my first reading. Blaine Hartman says his town has more wells than 9.
, a comparison that had me grinning at my desk this morning. Your father, who 10.
, would probably have liked Vuong’s plan as well.

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