Giving it back
Federal carbon tax rebates will exceed the cost for most people affected: Trudeau
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.
Unlike some political leaders, both in Canada and elsewhere, the prime minister said he is not willing to pass the burden of climate change on to our children and grandchildren.
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.
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 home heating and 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 just 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. Details of that program are not yet available.
Rebates will be determined when Canadians file taxes, either added to the refund payment or deducted from tax owing.
The amount will be based on the number of adults and children in a household.