The headline has been updated to more clearly reflect MP Viersen’s comments.
As cold weather has northern Albertans cranking their heaters, a Conservative MP is making good on a long-standing commitment to scrap the carbon tax, regardless of who introduces it.
MP Arnold Viersen, who represents the northern Alberta riding of Peace River—Westlock, says the top complaint coming into his office in the past week has been from constituents concerned about their natural gas bills.
December was a notably cold month in northern Alberta, with several communities breaking decades-old low-temperature records.
Viersen said in an interview with True North that the carbon tax is hurting Canadians without helping the environment.
“I’ve been clear from the onset of the imposition of the carbon tax that it only makes life more expensive for people in northern Alberta and doesn’t meet any of its goals,” he said. “I’ve been having a lot of folks send me copies of their natural gas bill. December, for most people, has been the highest natural gas bills they’ve ever had in their entire lives.”
Viersen said in some cases people are paying as much in carbon tax as they are in natural gas.
A leaflet Viersen’s office sent to constituents pointed out that inflation is at its highest point since 1991.
“My Conservative colleagues and I are calling on the Liberals to immediately repeal the carbon tax,” the leaflet pledges.
In April of last year, Conservative leader Erin O’Toole said a Conservative government would replace Trudeau’s carbon tax with a levy that would go into a “low carbon savings account” Canadians could use to make government-approved green purchases.
When pressed on whether he would oppose this as well, Viersen reiterated he was against “any” plan that would increase cost of living.
“I would just say I’m opposed to any plan that’s going to make life more expensive for folks in northern Alberta.”
Viersen told True North that Ottawa is too disconnected from the realities of his province to come up with an effective strategy.
“I don’t think that any made in Ottawa solution will change what’s going on in northern Alberta,” Viersen said. “We need to ensure that life becomes affordable for those of us living in northern Alberta. We don’t have the luxury of riding public transit or just turning the heat off in order to survive. We need hydrocarbons in northern Alberta.”
Viersen was clear that he wants to repeal the carbon tax, and prevent any similar measures from being imposed.
“I will be opposed to any tax that makes life more expensive, put forward by any leader in the federal parliament,” he said.
