(File photo/Nigel Maxwell paNOW Staff)

By Nigel Maxwell

The cost of carbon

Understanding the carbon tax and how it applies to you

Aug 9, 2019 | 5:00 PM

With just over two months to go until the federal election, the carbon tax is one of the top issues people are talking about, according to the candidates in the Prince Albert riding.

Liberal candidate Estelle Hjertaas sat down with paNOW this week to talk about her party’s plans to tackle climate change and help clear up misconceptions people had about it.

“In really simple terms, putting a price on bad things makes us want to use less of them. In this case the bad thing is greenhouse gas emissions or in short form we call it carbon equivalent,” she said.

The actual details of the Liberal plan are a bit more complicated. Hjertaas explained in the free market consumers are led to believe all the information on the products at the store is included in the price, but that’s not the reality, adding often people will often just pay for the item that is cheaper.

“Maybe what’s actually happened in this situation is that the cheaper one, that person is just polluting for free,” she said, adding the rest of us are all paying for that pollution.

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Hjertaas explained in a system of carbon pricing, gradually those prices will even out and eventually the guy who is polluting will end up paying more. Hjertaas acknowledged the time it takes for those prices to even out may take a bit of a time, given that the Liberal plan starts modestly at $20 a ton, with an increase of $10 a year until 2022. Hjertaas said when it comes to paying for gas at the pumps, people won’t notice a difference right away.

“Maybe at 4.5 cents [a litre] it doesn’t affect me but when it’s 20 cents that”s a lot of money and I’m going to change my driving behaviour,’ she said, adding there are a number of ways people can do that by walking to work more often, or planning a purchase of a fuel-efficient vehicle.

Hjertaas acknowledged people living in rural Saskatchewan or who commute regularly to work, don’t have the option of walking or hopping on a bus. She explained that farmers (purple fuel), fishers, greenhouses operators and power plants for remote communities are exempt from the tax

“So anything that farmers are using as purple fuel, there’s is no carbon price on that so any fluctuation in that is separate and market based,” she said

Hjertaas said new polls she has seen indicated the environment as the number one issue for people in this election. Hjertaas acknowledged there are people who don’t like the plan, but added when they have taken the time to sit down with her and hear how it works, they say they can at least understand it.

“Any action on climate change is going to have a price. We’ve chosen to make the price transparent,” she said.

How do the opponents feel?

Conservative incumbent Randy Hoback told paNOW he met with a group of farmers recently and one of them had talked about his $30,000 propane bill, and $2,700 of that was the carbon tax.

“So it’s one example where you are taxing Canadian businesses that are environmentally friendly and having some of the best regulations in the world and making them uncompetitive in the global marketplace,” he said.

The Conservative Party has promised to repeal the carbon tax if elected. Hoback said the whole idea of the carbon tax to get Canadians to drive less, is short-sighted and does not take into account the reality in rural Saskatchewan.

“I mean, you look at a riding like the riding of Prince Albert, we have to drive. If you live in Carrot River and you need parts, you go to Prince Albert or Saskatoon or Tisdale to get those parts,” he said. “Everything we do involves driving, that’s just the nature of living in a rural riding and when you throw a carbon tax at those people they will pay more, there’s no question about that.”

Kelly Day, the federal candidate for the People’s Party of Canada, told paNOW her party believes the carbon tax should be under provincial jurisdiction.

“Basically our party’s stance is not that we don’t believe in climate change, it’s that we suspect that there is more to be looked at in the science realm when it comes to human made climate change,” she said.

She added her party has a different ideology when it coms to ways to protect the environment including not abiding by everything the United Nations decides. With respect to Hoback’s comments on the costs to rural Saskatchewan, Day she could agree the carbon tax will punish people who are not doing anything wrong. Day recalled a conversation she had with someone, who had mentioned the high gas prices in B.C. will reduce the number of families travelling to that province.

“I said on the contrary, what that shows is a family of four can’t go on a vacation they’ve saved up for where as these big emitters are really probably going to get a slap on the wrist anyway,”

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nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell