‘Direct violation’: Alberta ignored its own rules by transferring wells to delinquent oil company, data suggests
Data shows an oil company owed 10 times the government’s limit on unpaid taxes when the Alberta Energy Regulator let it take over more wells and pipelines. Critics says it’s the tip of the iceberg
If companies fail to pay their property taxes in Alberta, a provincial regulator is supposed to block them from purchasing additional oil and gas wells. That rule appears to have been ignored in the case of MAGA Energy.
Illustration: Jarett Sitter / The Narwhal
The Alberta Energy Regulator appears to have ignored a direct ministerial order meant to protect rural municipalities and prevent struggling oil and gas companies from obtaining new licences, data obtained by The Narwhal reveals.
A ministerial order, first signed in 2023, prevents the regulator from approving the transfer of licences to any company owing more than $20,000 in unpaid taxes unless there’s a payment plan in place.
Data obtained by The Narwhal shows MAGA Energy owed more than $200,000 in taxes to Sturgeon County at the time of the transfer — more than 10 times the limit. The county told The Narwhal MAGA Energy violated an agreement to repay a portion of those taxes owing from 2023, and that it alerted the regulator in March 2024 that MAGA Energy was non-compliant.
MAGA Energy has failed to fully pay its municipal tax bills to Sturgeon County for at least three years in a row, according to data recently obtained by The Narwhal. Chart: Shawn Parkinson / The Narwhal
The regulator touts its power to approve licence transfers as a primary tool for weeding out bad actors in the oilpatch and says indications of financial difficulties, including tax arrears, will trigger a deep dive into a company seeking licences.
Critics say the MAGA transfer is just one example of a far bigger problem.
“Every time I hear the Alberta Energy Regulator say, ‘This transfer process is the backbone of our liability management system,’ I mean, I almost throw up my breakfast,” Shaun Fluker says. A law professor and head of public law clinic at the University of Calgary, Fluker’s “seen nothing to back up that statement, and what you uncovered here is really just a very quantifiable illustration of that.”
Alberta Energy Regulator in ‘direct violation’ of its rules: lawyer
The Alberta Energy Regulator refused to answer questions regarding the MAGA transfer and the figures obtained by The Narwhal.
The office of Alberta’s energy minister, Brian Jean, did not respond to emailed questions, neither did MAGA Energy.
In response to earlier questions for a previous story about MAGA Energy, it said the company “met the requirements to proceed” with the transfer and that “the evidence MAGA provided is not public information; it is between MAGA and the municipality or municipalities in which the arrears existed at that time.”
When emailed a series of questions and asked how the company could meet the requirements to proceed with the transfer given the evidence from Sturgeon County, the regulator declined to answer.
“Please refer to previous statements, we have no further statements on this topic,” read an email signed “AER media.”
Fluker, who has represented landowners in court over oil and gas licences and has extensive experience researching energy regulations in Alberta, says the lack of an agreement over its tax arrears with Sturgeon County would represent a “direct violation” of the minister’s order.
He says even if, hypothetically, MAGA Energy presented false information to the regulator — the “evidence” cited in the regulator’s response to questions — the regulator would still bear the blame.
“Even if MAGA did lie to the Alberta Energy Regulator, they had the information from the municipality,” he says.
“They have to be better than accepting false claims from applicants or transferors. … I think we legitimately expect them to be able to overcome that. That’s the whole point of being a regulatory agency.”
After publication, Fluker added the following additional statement: He has seen no evidence that MAGA Energy lied to the Alberta Energy Regulator but that it seems from what information is now publicly available that either MAGA submitted incomplete or inaccurate information to the regulator — or the regulator failed to act on accurate information provided by MAGA in relation to its unpaid municipal taxes. “Either way, the fact that the Alberta Energy Regulatory refuses to disclose evidence submitted by MAGA to clarify the situation is highly problematic and leads to discussions in hypotheticals and speculation,” he wrote in an email.
Fluker is skeptical the regulator undertakes the due diligence it professes when it comes to regulatory oversight and licensee evaluations.
‘It is an absolute free-for-all’ says Sturgeon County of regulatory failure
Obtaining tax information for oil and gas companies is a difficult, and expensive, task. Municipalities do not openly share details on which companies are in arrears and how much they owe.
Sturgeon County did admit MAGA Energy owed more than the ministerial order allowed. It previously told The Narwhal that the county alerted the regulator that the company was non-compliant with its obligations. But to determine the exact amounts required a trip to the county — as tax data can only be accessed by visiting the physical office — and paying the $1,000 required to release the data.
That data from county tax rolls shows MAGA Energy owed just over $100,000 in taxes and penalties for 2023, an additional $90,000 in 2024 and $116,000 more in 2025.
But Sturgeon County said the figure it reported to the regulator on March 15, 2024, was slightly higher, at $171,000 owing. A spokesperson confirmed MAGA Energy breached its agreement with the county in February 2024.
The county’s openness is in contrast to municipalities that are reluctant to provide even basic information. Many of those other counties are smaller and more dependent on oil and gas producers.
“For us, this particular company not paying its taxes is not going to break us,” Sturgeon County mayor Alanna Hnatiw says.
Still, it is a pressing issue across the province and has a significant impact on the ability of smaller counties to pay for services such as roads and wastewater treatment, Hnatiw says, adding it undermines faith in the government, regulator and industry.
“If we can’t have trust that we know how to make regulations that serve and protect people, and uphold those regulations, then it is an absolute free-for-all,” she says. “And I don’t think any Albertan is really comfortable, or any Canadian for that matter, is comfortable with the idea of a free-for-all in the energy sector or in any other sector.”
MAGA Energy’s application to purchase 170 oil and gas wells in rural Alberta was approved by the Alberta Energy Regulator in 2024, despite the company’s outstanding municipal tax bills. Delinquent oil and gas companies “are running without consequence,” according to the mayor of Sturgeon County, where MAGA owes over $300,000. Photo: Isabella Falsetti / The Narwhal
Hnatiw is a strong supporter of the oil and gas industry and believes the vast majority of companies follow the rules and act responsibly, but she says the regulator, and the government which gives it direction, have allowed problem companies to act with impunity.
“The Alberta Energy Regulator has to get serious about how to deal with these businesses, because they are running without consequence, and they know that,” she says.
“These companies do know how to thread the needle right enough to keep running without paying their way.”
In the specific case of licence transfers, Hnatiw questions why there is a process for alerting the regulator to delinquencies if that information is going to be ignored.
Across Alberta, hundreds of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes from oil and gas companies
MAGA Energy now owes more than $300,000 to Sturgeon County as 2025 comes to close, but it’s just one of hundreds of oil and gas companies across the province that are impacting the ability of rural municipalities to operate.
Across the province, companies owe more than $254 million in unpaid taxes and municipalities have written off an additional $200 million, money that will never be recovered.
The Rural Municipalities of Alberta says $100 million of the remaining taxes are owed by 201 companies that are still operating.
Hnatiw says that’s particularly egregious.
“I think there’s a difference if you have a company that is defunct and is basically in a period of stasis, than somebody who is still using your roads, using your infrastructure and requiring the maintenance to be able to deal with their wear and tear on roads,” she says.
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She also takes issue with a provincial government that doesn’t appear to be taking action while downloading the consequences to municipalities.
At the recent Rural Municipalities of Alberta convention, she says Alberta Premier Danielle Smith told attendees that those millions in unpaid taxes are unlikely to ever be collected. (Smith’s office did not respond to a request for comment about this by publication time.)
“To hear that and to not hear the next sentence about what we’re doing to shut down these companies doesn’t give me a lot of confidence that these companies are going to see any consequences,” she says.
— With files from Kelsie Johnston
Updated on Dec. 11, 2025, at 2:08 p.m MT: This story has been updated to include an additional statement from Shaun Fluker.
Another year of keeping a close watch
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.
And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.
In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”
Here at The Narwhal, we don’t use profit, awards or pageviews to measure success. The thing that matters most is real-world impact — evidence that our reporting influenced citizens to hold power to account and pushed policymakers to do better.
And in 2024, our stories were raised in parliaments across the country and cited by citizens in their petitions and letters to politicians.
In Alberta, our reporting revealed Premier Danielle Smith made false statements about the controversial renewables pause. In Manitoba, we proved that officials failed to formally inspect a leaky pipeline for years. And our investigations on a leaked recording of TC Energy executives were called “the most important Canadian political story of the year.”
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Will you join the 10,000 readers who give generously each year to make our investigative journalism possible? Help us gear up for more big stories in 2026 and get a charitable receipt!
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