City Notebook: Carbon tax on the brink of being scrapped, it would seem

By Collin Gallant on September 14, 2024.

Fire up the furnace and rev the engine, the carbon tax appears to be on its last legs.

It’s a column that’s been in the works for a while, but Jagmeet Singh forced the issue this week, saying the consumer levy of gas, diesel and home heating has to change.

In the 2015 election, two thirds of Canadians voted for a party that supported a carbon tax, led by the federal Liberals.

For the Liberals to campaign on it now would be like carrying a dead horse up a flight of stairs.

No amount of math or rebate, it seems, can counteract the momentum against it. The well is thoroughly poisoned.

The Conservative Party has gained nothing but ground promising to kill the idea that was introduced in Canada by Stephen Harper, by the way. (Look it up.)

But what’s changed?

Philosophically, the defining characteristic of a tax is its inevitable nature.

Once it stops being so, it becomes bendable and then irrelevant.

This is why anti-tax crusaders seek out and exploit little cracks – seemingly non-sensical contradictions in the tax code – to destabilize the larger structure.

A good example is that the GST is charged on the federal gas tax (which is a way to pay for roads, by the way, not punish carbon).

Enter the Liberals’ decision to exempt home heating oil last year in an apparent concession to Maritimers who mainly use the fuel. At that point, Saskatchewan basically stopped collecting it on natural gas used for the same purpose.

And then suddenly, folks who strongly called for regional exemptions and case-by-case regulations, suddenly wondered about the legitimacy of a non-universal levy.

And if a law isn’t followed or enforced, is it really a law?

Alberta, for example, has argued that it’s a special case vis a vis carbon, but didn’t want any part in determining localized rules for a tax it opposed in total.

This column is titled “City Notebook” though, so what’s the effect on Medicine Hat?

For one, there’s a look at the city’s move into solar power production in this issue.

For another, it adds some calculus to a city-federal study on whether to start switching out natural gas buses to electric models.

The move saved a lot of money when natural gas prices sunk for a decade, but rose due to the now jeopardized carbon levy on users.

In fact, the concern when council members considered the move in 2012 was whether natural gas used in vehicles would be subjected to levies in the federal gas tax.

Ald. Wayne Craven raised the issue, but that ultimately didn’t happen, mainly because natural gas never really took off as a transportation fuel

As for Saamis Solar, the NDP and even Conservatives could likely support a shift to corporations and large emitter levies – similar to Alberta’s TIER carbon charges on power producers, like the city plant.

Highway 3

Open houses outlined the potential twinning of Highway 3 from the Hat to Whitla this week, which brings up two lingering questions.

Will Hatters finally get an answer about potential highway alignment near the Medicine Hat Regional Airport, or news about a ring-road plan that’s decades old?

Some discussion could be coming at a city committee this week.

Question two is why there aren’t any coffee shops on the stretch that is supposedly busy as gang-busters?

You know the franchises, and realize they have analysts pouring over traffic maps of the nation seeking our underserved, highly visible locations to plant down franchises.

That’s what happened near Altawana Drive a few year’s back, and is currently underway on Dunmore Road.

Also, new breakfast joints are popping up all over, but not in the southwest corner of town.

A look ahead

Council meets Monday to discuss a code of conduct policy change and hear an energy division clean energy overview.

The Parade of Homes kicks off Wednesday with a ceremonial 2X4 cutting before the public is welcomed in to offerings of local homebuilding community.

100 years ago

The success or failure of a drive to build a community skating rink “rests entirely with the citizens of Medicine Hat,” the News stated in a rare front page editorial on Sept. 15, 1924.

“The 75 men who are conducting the campaign are sold completely on the idea, but unless every citizen gets behind them, their efforts will not count for much.”

Notable businessmen in the city proposed the construction, and in the first week sold $10 shares totalling $11,650.

The price of gasoline would likely fall from 32 to 28 cents per gallon in the coming winter, according to estimates.

The City of Brandon would end street car service to stem a $41,000 deficit at the street railway, and was planning to offer substitute motor busing.

Collin Gallant covers city politics and a variety of topics for the News. Reach him at 403-528-5664 or via email at cgallant@medicinehatnews.com.