The Northwest Territories’ newly elected premier, R.J. Simpson, is the latest premier to demand a blanket exemption from Ottawa’s carbon tax.
“I mean, ideally, a complete exemption for the territory is what we would hope for,” said Simpson in a Sunday interview with CBC’s Rosemary Barton. “The costs are already high — higher costs are not the solution up here.”
Federal carbon pricing requires provinces and territories to set up their own collection system if they don’t want to use the system already in place by the Trudeau government.
Simpson’s government chose to create its own carbon pricing system, meaning if it wishes to make an exemption on home oil heating, it will be required to create its own processes regarding changes.
Initially, the territory had revised its process to stop issuing rebates on home heating fuels in April, however the territory’s legislature dissolved in October for an election.
During that same time period, the federal government announced that it would grant an exemption on home heating oil, while the legislature was out.
Following Simpsons’ election win, he stated that the carbon tax simply “doesn’t work” for the people of his territory.
“Here in the Northwest Territories, the cost of living is high. The cost of fuel, home heating, power — they’ve always been high. [If] high costs is what is going to get people to use green energy and green technology, we would have been doing that years ago,” said Simpson.
The Northwest Territories aren’t connected to southern power grids and suffer from a lack of the kind of infrastructure needed to implement new technologies.
“Heat pumps don’t work up here in this climate,” said Simpsoon.
Conventional air-source heat pumps tend to struggle in colder temperatures and are likely to stop working in the winter months.
“We all agree we need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change is real, I can tell you we are being impacted here in the North more so than the rest of the country,” said Simpson, who also mentioned how he was forced out of his home for two months this year during the wildfires that spread across Yellowknife and several other communities.
Simpson said that many residents of the N.W.T. are already struggling with the cost of living as it is.
“The prices in the rest of Canada are getting close to what they actually used to be here, so the prices are just getting higher and higher here,” he said.
So far, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has denied any further requests regarding exemptions on the federal carbon tax, despite many premiers’ requests that Ottawa extend the carve out exemption to all forms of home heating.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been adamant that if elected, his government would end the carbon tax.
Recently, the Conservative party introduced a bill to give an exemption to certain farmers and to create a new exemption for First Nations.
“You will have no rest until the tax is gone,” said Poilievre last week in Parliament.
Simpson said that his territory will require further help from Ottawa when it comes to issues of the infrastructure necessary to make the appropriate changes on home heating.
“The fact is, we need major infrastructure upgrades and we can’t afford those ourselves, as a territory,” said Simpson. “It’s just not sustainable.”
