P.E.I. carbon pricing plan aims to hold the line

The Dennis King authorities is hoping to keep up its present carbon pricing plan, together with exempting residence heating fuels from a carbon tax.

P.E.I. Atmosphere Minister Steven Myers mentioned the province’s carbon pricing proposal to the federal authorities, which he anticipated to be submitted late within the day Sept. 2, would additionally keep exemptions to marked fuels utilized by farmers and fishers. It will additionally exempt gasoline utilized by cruise ships and would keep a 2019 lower in provincial fuel excise tax, initially supposed to cushion the affect of carbon pricing on the pumps.

The three-year deal will come into impact in April 2023.

“I do not assume it should come as a shock that we requested for what now we have,” Myers advised SaltWire on Sept. 2.

The federal authorities’s carbon levy will improve from round 11 cents per litre on the worth of fuel to 14 cents per litre in April 2023.

However Myers mentioned the province is hoping is present efficiency on local weather applications will persuade the federal authorities to maintain the worth of gasoline from rising.

A carbon levy additionally entails rebate cheques to households supposed to offset the additional tax partly or utterly paid on the pumps. However Myers mentioned the expertise of Islanders with inflation has demonstrated that worth signalling has not inspired Islanders to make use of much less gasoline or to drive much less.

“I feel it is secure to say that gasoline costs have elevated drastically during the last 18 months right here in Prince Edward Island already,” Myers mentioned.

“The consumption hasn’t decreased. It is really elevated. And it is as a result of we haven’t any options. So, we’re attempting to introduce options.”

Myers mentioned they embody rural transit traces connecting Souris to Tignish and providing as much as a $5,000 incentive for Islanders who purchase an electrical automobile.

However provide chain disruptions have hampered these efforts. Myers pointed to the shortage of provide of EVs on dealership heaps on P.E.I.

“All we’re asking is that the federal authorities give us a bit little bit of leeway right here – proceed to do what we’re doing and transition forward of getting to affect Islanders in a unfavourable method,” Myers mentioned.

Myers mentioned the province’s local weather applications have achieved success and pointed to the five-per-cent-reduction in P.E.I.’s local weather emissions in 2020.

Workers in Myers’ personal division have warned that this discount could have been an anomaly as a consequence of diminished commuting caused by lockdowns through the first yr of the pandemic.

‘Give the cash again,’ say Greens

In an interview with SaltWire Community on Sept. 2, Inexperienced Opposition Chief Peter Bevan-Baker known as the province’s present carbon pricing regime a “horrible plan.”

He argued the province’s one-year deal, struck final April, disadvantaged P.E.I. residents of rebate cheques that would have helped ease the impacts of runaway inflation.

The federal authorities has mentioned a household of 4 would obtain between $800 and $1,100 in rebate cheques underneath its federal backstop. Nevertheless, underneath that plan, the worth of fuel would improve by six to seven cents per litre by April 2023.

Bevan-Baker mentioned P.E.I.’s carbon worth must be income impartial, that means all the cash could be returned in rebate cheques. As a substitute, the province plans to spend $23 million of the $31 million it collects on carbon taxes this yr on local weather applications and on a lower of provincial fuel taxes.

The remaining income allowed most Islanders to obtain a rebate cheque of between $100 and $140.

“Give the cash again,” Bevan-Baker mentioned when requested what the province ought to have completed.

“Ensure that the funds that are collected via carbon pricing are returned on to residents.”

Bevan-Baker added that local weather applications must be financed via the province’s present income.

A Sept. 1 letter despatched on behalf of all Atlantic Canadian premiers, together with King, known as on the federal authorities to permit an extension to the Sept. 2 deadline for provinces to submit carbon pricing plans. Federal Atmosphere Minister Steven Guilbeault turned down this extension.

In an e-mail assertion, P.E.I. interim Liberal chief Sonny Gallant known as this letter “an act of desperation and disrespect.”

“It’s time provincial leaders re-focus their vitality and efforts to making a carbon plan that may work for each side,” Gallant mentioned.

“I hope our premier and surroundings minister confirmed good management and accountability to Islanders and made the choice to be a part of the answer to discovering the completely satisfied medium Islanders are in search of.”