Federal carbon tax rebates to exceed cost for most people
OTTAWA — The federal government will return 90 per cent of all the money it collects from a carbon price directly to the Canadians.
But it has pushed back the start date of its new carbon tax another four months to allow the affected provinces to prepare.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled the details of the carbon tax rebates at a Toronto college on Tuesday, in an attempt to sell Canadians on the need to pay for pollution without breaking their pocketbooks.
“Starting next year, it will no longer be free to pollute anywhere in Canada,” Trudeau said at Humber College.
Ottawa required all provinces to put a minimum price on pollution of $20 a tonne of emissions by Jan. 1. Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick have not complied and will have a federal carbon levy on fuels as well as a cap-andtrade style of system for large industrial emitters imposed on them, April 1.
Residents in those provinces will start getting federal rebates on their next tax return to offset the extra costs they will pay for everything from gasoline and groceries to electricity.
British Columbia, Alberta, Quebec, Newfoundland, and the Northwest Territories all put a price on pollution high enough to meet federal standards and the revenues in those provinces are being handled by those provincial governments. Nunavut and the Yukon both chose to use the federal system and therefore they also will get to decide how to use the revenues.
Prince Edward Island asked to use the big industrial emitters portion of the federal program, but will have its own carbon levy, so it, too, will get to distribute the revenues as it sees fit.
Ottawa anticipates collecting more than $2.3 billion in carbon taxes in those provinces and 90 per cent of that will go to household rebates. The payments vary because carbon taxes collected will be higher depending on how provinces power and heat homes.
The remaining 10 per cent will be handed out to small and medium-sized businesses, schools, hospitals and other organizations that can’t pass on their costs from the carbon tax directly to consumers.
After joining Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for Tuesday’s carbon tax announcement, Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna headed to Hamilton where she visited her former elementary school – École élémentaire catholique Notre-Dame – and participated in a question-and-answer session with students before heading to Mohawk College to do the same.
While speaking at Mohawk, McKenna slammed the Doug Ford government for cancelling their cap-and-trade program.
In Hamilton, the end of cap-and-trade meant the loss of millions in provincial funding, including:
• $3.7 million to expand Hamilton’s cycling network
• $17 million in social housing repairs and retrofits over the next three years
• $1.2 million for Mohawk’s Centre for Climate Change Management
• $2.1 million for Hamilton’s public school board for school renovations and energy efficiency initiatives
• $2 million for an electric bus pilot project “We know that there have been cuts to programs here that have affected more energy efficient social housing, other energy efficiency initiatives, so we will be looking at how we support these projects,” McKenna said after the Q&A session.
“We want to continue working with the people of Hamilton. We want to work with places like Mohawk College or McMaster University or the City of Hamilton that’s been very committed to climate action.”
When asked whether the 10 per cent collected through carbon taxes to be handed out to schools, hospitals and other organizations will be enough to make up for the millions lost in Hamilton, McKenna said the federal government is examining that.
“There is that fund; there (are) other opportunities to support these programs,” she said. During the Mohawk visit, McKenna also announced close to $265,000 for the Bay Area Climate Change Office – a collaboration between the college and the cities of Hamilton and Burlington to tackle climate change locally.