Business group accuses province of hiding costs

Level of disclosure on administration of carbon levy called ‘woefully inadequate’

The NDP government says the administrative costs associated with the province’s carbon tax are $2.1 million annually, but a business advocacy group is questioning why the figures were blanked out of documents it received from the province.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said Wednesday it had made a freedom of information request to the government on the administration cost of the carbon levy, which was introduced at the start of 2017.

The 2016 documents released by the government in response were heavily redacted, with actual figures whited out in a memo that outlined the total operating cost of design, implementation and administration from 2017 to 2022, and the capital cost for the design and build of the IT system.

Amber Ruddy, Alberta director of the CFIB, said it was disturbing the government knows the cost of the program but refused to make it public.

However, the government said later Wednesday that Finance Minister Joe Ceci had disclosed the carbon tax administration expense as $2.5 million for 2017-18 at a legislature committee meeting in April.

It later said the amount, which includes operating and capital costs, had been reduced to $2.1 million through finding efficiencies.

“This cost represents less than half a per cent of the expected revenue from this program,” Ceci said in a statement released by his office.

“We pride ourselves on being an open and transparent government. To say that this information was not made public is just not true.”

But Ruddy said the level of disclosure was “woefully inadequate.”

She said in an interview that there are still outstanding questions, including why the figure wasn’t disseminated further and whether the number cited by Ceci matched those kept out of the documents released by CFIB.

“Why did the freedom of information request come back redacted?” she said.

“And I’m still poking around looking for it now. Where exactly can I find it? I have to search the Hansard of a committee? … This information, it’s important to have it available publicly so people can analyze it.”

The documents released by the government indicate the reasons for not releasing the figures are that they are considered confidential cabinet or Treasury Board information and advice to officials, two legal rationales for non-disclosure under the province’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy (FOIP) Act.

Ceci was not made available for an interview Wednesday.

Finance department spokesman Mike Berezowsky said the decisions around disclosure were made by the ministry’s FOIP officials. He said the legislation is highly prescriptive in requiring officials not to release cabinet or Treasury Board information.

Ruddy said the CFIB has filed a complaint with the province’s information and privacy commissioner asking for the documents to be released in full.

In a news release, the Opposition United Conservative Party called on the government to release all the documents in question, as well as an internal government economic impact study on the carbon tax that was done last year.

The carbon levy, which came into effect at a price based on $20 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions, is a key initiative in the Notley government’s ambitious plan to reduce Alberta’s Canada-leading output of greenhouse gas emissions.

The tax, which boosts the cost of gasoline by 4.49 cents per litre and natural gas by $1.011 per gigajoule, will rise to an equivalent of $30 a tonne in 2018.

Where exactly can I find it? … This information, it’s important to have it available publicly so people can analyze it.