City Notebook: Carbon tax, part II

By Collin Gallant on March 29, 2025.

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Goodbye to the carbon tax – but which one is that again?

Many Canadians are now learning via our federal election there are two.

And just in case you haven’t heard enough about the merits and downfalls of the carbon pricing for every minute of the last 10 years, the industrial one Is now up for debate.

Liberal Leader Mark Carney, who’s taking credit for zeroing out the consumer charge starting Monday, says the similar charge on industries will keep clean energy projects and plant investments alive, as well as Canada’s climate plan.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre upped the ante stating both would be gone under a CPC mandate, that they kill economic activity and that tax credits for technological solutions are best.

Meanwhile, Saskatchewan Premier Scot Moe – who thumbed his nose at Ottawa by not charging the levy on natural gas last year – has now said he’ll kill the charge on industrial emissions as well.

Alberta’s Danielle Smith, whose list of demands for Ottawa includes relinquishing industrial carbon oversight to provinces, will next have to figure out what to do with this province’s TIER levy.

Bills

At the ground level, next month’s utility bill will be the last to feature the carbon tax on natural gas (used in March). It costs a regular household about $500 per year, but gone too are residential recycling fees thanks to an incoming provincial “extended producer responsibility” program. It charges companies that produce plastic, tin, glass and paper directly and remits funds to cities with recycling programs. (Full disclosure, this also hits the News hard).

That’s about six years after an effort by cities, and a leading role for local councillor Brian Varga in the push.

City administrators estimate it will save residential customers about $76 over the remainder of the year. That’s relative though, with the difference built into general utility increases that are lessened to about 1 per cent in the end.

Gone too, of course, are quarterly rebate cheques, with one more to be issued in April before the program concludes for good.

Another thought: Since the public has been told the carbon tax is a “tax on everything,” will we see the price of “everything” go down?

Hockey talk

This entire column was going to be about how hockey in Medicine Hat is fun again, but, then, as they say, real life happened.

You remember fun? The feeling in the old Arena heaving as the Tigers momentum built, that feeling of sure victory coming on.

The new Arena has gained some of the old barn’s vibes this year, no doubt. After recording two sell-outs in nine years, Co-op Place could record three in eight days as the playoffs begin.

But, there’s a new sense of gravity this week.

Tigers goaltender Harrison Meneghin’s father passed away last Sunday, the same day the team took the regular season conference title. What should have been a time of celebration became a long bus ride, and for Meneghin, a plane trip home.

Losing a parent is awful, especially for young man of 20, but at any age.

We all wish for a Hollywood ending here. Big playoff run. Something that makes sense.

But while we’re remembering that hockey can be joyous, we should also remember that it can also be sorrowful, a struggle or a success, exhilarating or exhausting, with both wins and losses.

Life is like that, too -even more so.

This and that

– CBC’s the National is promoting that Medicine Hat will host one of four televised roundtables with average voters during the federal election. Other locations are St. John, N.B., Brampton, Ont., and Yellowknife.

– There are stirrings that local Liberals will put forward a local candidate (i.e. a well-known name in the Hat) to run in Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner. The ballot deadline is April 7.

A look ahead

Council’s next regular meeting is April 7, but there’s a closed-door committee of the whole planned for Monday. The city’s 2024 financial report will arrive at council’s audit committee on Tuesday – that’s April 1.

100 years ago

Ontario’s energy concerns could be solved by turning Alberta and Cape Breton coal into coke, a News editorial stated in early April 1925, arguing national production would displace U.S. imports of anthracite coal worth $43 million annually,

“The fuel problem of central provinces is one which calls for an early solution,” which would circumvent continuous labour unrest in Pennsylvania mines.

Henrietta King, America’s richest woman, died at the age of 93 at her 1.2-million acre Texas ranch. The elderly widow had actively managed the enterprise for “some decades” and had grown the spread to the point where annual calf sales often totalled 100,000.

The Regina Patricia Hockey Club captured the Dominion championship Memorial Cup over Toronto “Aura Lee” in a two-game seres after defeating Calgary, The University of Winnipeg and Port Arther en route to Toronto.

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.

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