While Alberta’s provincial government says the carbon tax has in fact boosted the economy with federal pipeline approval, there remains naysayers.
Alberta’s carbon tax jumped on New Year’s Day, but the province’s NDP government maintains the tax played a vital role in Alberta’s improving economic outlook, according to Canadian Press.
Deputy premier Sarah Hoffman told reporters there was a clear link between the approval of several pipelines last year and the tax that Alberta first introduced on carbon on January 1, 2017.
Hoffman noted the federal government was clear that its approval for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion from Alberta to the B.C. coast was due to Alberta putting a price on carbon, as well as other pieces of its climate change policy.
Alberta’s carbon levy jumped from $20 per tonne to $30 per tonne on Monday, which Hoffman says will mean an extra two-and-a-half cents per litre at the gas pumps.
Opposition Leader Jason Kenney of the United Conservative Party posted a video to social media on New Year’s Eve where he gassed up his truck before the hike, similar to a video he posted last year where he did the same thing.
Kenney says the tax has already killed thousands of good paying jobs, put entrepreneurs out of business and made life more expensive for families.
“The carbon tax is all economic pain with no environmental gain,” Kenney said in a New Year’s Day statement.
The province says revenue from the levy, which also includes a tax on heating bills, will continue to be invested in green infrastructure, encouraging Albertans to be energy efficient and renewable energy.
It says low- and middle-income Albertans will also see an increase in rebates the province provides to offset the carbon tax.
(Canadian Press/CTV News)
