Home heating frustration

​When I first was elected as a Member of Parliament, I fast discovered it was not uncommon for citizens to share personal documents with me on issues they were finding to be challenging to deal with when it comes to the federal government.

While that fact has not changed, what has surprised me is the extent to how much the list of challenges has grown.

Some examples:

Many citizens can longer receive a passport within a reasonable period of time.

Immigration backlogs have never been worse and some citizens, to their shock and dismay, discover supporting documents to their application have literally disappeared from their file.

Air travelers who experience immense frustration from travel cancellations have discovered the air passenger bill of rights is not helping them.

Many citizens in rural areas still cannot receive broadband internet despite promises to the contrary over the past five years.

Increasingly I receive winter gas bills from citizens who can no longer afford their home heating. 

On that note one recent home heating bill caught my attention.

The person who sent the bill to me pointed out that they had to go on the “equal payment plan” in order to afford the cold winter months.

For this individual that means 12 equal payments of $170 a month for a total of $2,040 for the year.

They also pointed out that close to a quarter of that bill $473 (23% actually) was solely paying for the carbon tax.

As this individual is not eligible for the BC climate action rebate, (In B.C. individuals earning $79,376 or more are not eligible for this credit) the question was asked how much higher the carbon tax would be next year.

This is a good question as on one hand that carbon tax in B.C. is provincial and yet on the other hand when BC signed onto the federal Pan-Canadian Climate Strategy they agreed to the guidelines will called for the carbon tax in BC to rise to $50 per tonne as of April 1, 2022.
$50/tonne is the current rate.

So what happens next? 

Prime Minister Trudeau wants to triple the carbon tax here Canada at the following rate schedule:

The minimum Carbon Pollution Price ($ CAD/tonne CO2e) for 2023  is $65.

In the following years:

2024 $80
2025 $95
2026 $110
2027 $125
2028 $140
2029 $155
2030 $170

As the Canadian Climate Strategy was only in effect until the end of 2022, it is unknown if the BC NDP government will continue to follow the Trudeau Liberal government in this direction.

If it does, as you can see for 2023, this would be a 30% increase over the current carbon tax rate.

It is easy to understand why the Bank of Canada has confirmed that the carbon tax does help to increase inflation here in Canada.

My question this week:

Do you support B.C. continuing to follow the federal Liberal government in tripling the carbon tax by the year 2030 to $170/tonne?

I can be reached at Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca or call toll free 1-800-665-8711.