Weeks after Alberta Premier Jason Kenney repealed the province’s carbon tax, the federal government has set a date for its own carbon tax on Albertans.
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said she’s informed her Alberta counterpart that the province’s residents will start paying the federally-imposed charge as of Jan. 1, 2020.
“I sent a letter to Minister [Jason] Nixon, he’s the Minister of Environment in Alberta, letting him know that as a result of Alberta’s decision to make it free to pollute in Alberta, that we will have the federal price on pollution,” she said.
“Alberta had a made in Alberta plan to put a price on pollution, and we clearly need Alberta to be part of our national climate plan.”
Alberta will be the fifth province to have a carbon tax forced upon it. The federal government imposed the tax on Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick on April 1, as a response to those provinces not having their own program meeting the federal government’s standards.
Alberta’s newly elected United Conservative government made the repeal of the carbon tax the first bill put forward in the legislature, symbolizing how much the carbon tax was despised by Albertans.
On Thursday the Albertan government announced that it is launching a court challenge to the federal imposition of the carbon tax on their province, asking the court if it is constitutional or not.
Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario have all also made similar challenges.
Albertans, as well as all Canadians, may have more reasons to despise the carbon tax.
The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) recently said that the government would need to nearly triple the carbon tax between now and 2030 to meet their climate-change goals.
This increase could raise the price of gas by as much as 30 cents per litre according to one estimate.
A report from last year painted an even darker picture, stating that the government would have to raise the carbon tax from the current $50 per tonne to $300 per tonne in order to make a real difference in carbon output.
A carbon tax makes the prospects of an economic recovery in Alberta look very low.
The federal government has made it clear that as long as they remain in power their carbon tax will be the only climate change plan they will accept.
