budget. The budget would not be balanced again until fiscal year 1997–1998. Trudeau's government also introduced a capital gains tax in the 1971 federal budget. By the time Trudeau's first tenure ended in 1979, the deficit grew to $12 billion (fiscal year 1979–1980), a large number that sharply contrasted to his relatively small deficit of $667 million in his first budget (1968–1969). On September 4, 1973, Trudeau requested Western Canadian provinces to agree to a voluntary freeze on oil prices during the ongoing Arab oil embargo. Nine days after, the Trudeau government imposed a 40-cent tax on every barrel of Canadian oil exported to the United States to combat rising inflation and oil prices. The tax was equivalent to the difference between domestic and international oil prices, and the revenues were used to subsidize oil imports for Eastern refiners. The Premier of oil-rich Alberta, Peter Lougheed, called the decision "the most discriminatory action taken by a federal government against a particular province in the entire history of Confederation." While revenues decreased for Western provinces (particularly Alberta) and for the petroleum industry, Trudeau's government subsidized Eastern consumers, angering Alberta, who successfully fought for control of its natural resources in 1930. While popular with the electorate, Trudeau's promised minor reforms had little effect on the growing rate of inflation, and he struggled with conflicting advice on the crisis. In September 1975 the popular finance minister, John Turner, resigned over a perceived lack of support in countervailing measures. In October 1975, in an embarrassing about-face, Trudeau and new Finance Minister Donald Macdonald introduced wage and price controls by passing the Anti-Inflation Act. The breadth of the legislation, which touched on many powers traditionally considered the purview of the provinces, prompted a Supreme Court reference that only upheld the legislation as an emergency requiring Federal intervention under the British North America Act. During the annual 1975 Christmas interview with CTV, Trudeau discussed the economy, citing market failures and stating that more state intervention would be necessary. However, the academic wording and hypothetical solutions posed during the complex discussion led much of the public to believe he had declared capitalism itself a failure, creating a lasting distrust among increasingly neoliberal business leaders. The government created Petro-Canada. Foreign affairs In foreign affairs, Trudeau kept Canada in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), but often pursued an independent path in international relations. Trudeau was the first world