• • • Carney promised to immediately remove the carbon tax

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the federal government to immediately end the carbon tax.

“Newly announced Liberal leader Mark Carney is set to be sworn in as prime minister, and he needs to make good on his pledge and get rid of the carbon tax right now,” said Kris Sims, CTF Alberta Director. “When he was running for Liberal Party leadership, Carney said he would remove the consumer carbon tax and he needs to do that immediately.

“Canadians should not be paying the carbon tax for one minute longer.”

Carney was announced as leader of the Liberal Party on Sunday, March 9, making him set to be the next prime minister. During party the leadership race, Carney promised to “immediately remove the consumer carbon tax.”

The government has the ability under the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act to immediately reduce the carbon tax rate to $0 with no legislative change required, even with Parliament prorogued.

That means the federal government can effectively end the carbon tax immediately.

The carbon tax is scheduled to increase to 21 cents per litre of gasoline, 25 cents per litre of diesel and 18 cents per cubic metre of natural gas on April 1.

The carbon tax will cost about $15 extra to fill up a minivan, about $25 extra to fill up a pick-up truck and about $250 extra to fill up a big rig truck with diesel.

The average Canadian family will pay up to $440 extra in carbon tax on their natural gas home heating bills this winter.

“Half of Canadians are broke, and within $200 every month of not being able to make the minimum payments on their bills, they cannot afford to pay this carbon tax for a minute longer,” said Sims. “The carbon tax is an unfair tax on everything because it punishes Canadians for driving to work, heating their homes, delivering goods and growing food – it needs to be scrapped immediately.”

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