UCP wants referendum on carbon tax hikes

Alberta’s Opposition United Conservatives say there should be no more carbon tax increase without the consent of voters.

Party leader Jason Kenney introduced a private member’s bill Thursday that would ban any future hikes on the existing tax or on reinstating such a levy in the future without a referendum.

“Albertans should get the final say before the government digs deeper into their pockets,” Kenney said after introducing the bill, which would need the support of Premier Rachel Notley’s government to become law.

Kenney has called the carbon tax an unfair burden on Alberta residents, with little benefit to reaching greenhouse gas emission targets or to getting oil pipelines built.

He has promised to kill the tax if he becomes premier in the 2019 election.

The levy was imposed by Notley in 2017 on heating and gasoline to fund green projects ranging from solar panels to multibillion-dollar transit projects and programs to phase out coal-fired electricity.

The province is taking in about $1 billion this fiscal year from the levy but is returning some of that

through rebates to middle and lowincome families.

The UCP contends the carbon tax has failed in its main objective to buy “social licence” and give Alberta some moral high ground against pipeline opponents by demonstrating it is committed to balancing resource development with environmental stewardship

Government house leader Brian Mason, responding to Kenney’s bill, said the tax is succeeding and led to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government approving the Trans

Mountain pipeline expansion from Edmonton to Burnaby in 2016.

“It (the tax and climate plan) is probably our best tool to keep the federal government’s nose to the grindstone when it comes to seeing through the decision to build the Trans Mountain pipeline, and Mr. Kenney would strike it from our hands,” said Mason.

Alberta is losing millions of dollars a day because its heavy oil is discounted due to pipeline bottlenecks and lack of access to customers in overseas markets.