Whitehorse Daily Star

YG won’t analyze carbon tax’s impact itself

The Yukon government isn’t conducting its own carbon tax impact analysis, despite persistent calls from the official Opposition to do so.

By Taylor Blewett on January 3, 2018

The Yukon government isn’t conducting its own carbon tax impact analysis, despite persistent calls from the official Opposition to do so.

The Climate Change Secretariat – a Yukon government entity – is instead participating in a federal study to assess the impacts of carbon pricing in the North. The completed study is expected to include a chapter on the Yukon.

The question of a carbon tax impact analysis for the territory resurfaced again after a cold snap in the final days of December saw an energy consumption record broken repeatedly (see Tuesday’s Star).

In times of high demand such as this, Yukon Energy supplements hydroelectricity with diesel and natural gas.

This prompted the Yukon Party to issue a statement Tuesday urging the government, as it has done in the legislature, to conduct a carbon tax impact analysis.

“In a cold climate, Yukoners are required to heat their homes with energy generated from fossil fuels,” the statement reads. “The premier’s carbon tax scheme is designed to make these fuels more expensive.

“For over a year, the official Opposition has been asking the premier to provide Yukoners with an analysis of the impacts on the territory.

“For over a year, the premier has deflected and blamed while conducting no such analysis.”

The Yukon government reiterated its commitment to accepting the federal government’s carbon pricing backstop as recently as Dec. 20, when it announced the results of its public engagement on a carbon tax rebate.

All provinces and territories in Canada will be subject to the federal backstop in 2018 if they don’t have in place their own carbon pricing mechanism that meets a federal benchmark.

The backstop will see a carbon tax applied to liquid, gaseous and solid fuels – including gasoline, diesel and natural gas.

When the backstop comes into effect this fall, gasoline will be taxed at 2.33 cents per litre, diesel at 2.74 cents per litre, and marketable natural gas at 1.96 cents per cubic metre.

Environment Yukon spokesperson Sophie Best was asked whether the government will conduct its own analysis of the impacts of the impending carbon tax.

“Because this is a federal carbon price – not a territorial one – the analysis of the impacts of carbon pricing is being studied at that level,” Best said via email.

The federal study, with the Yukon government’s support, will “assess the territorial impacts of carbon pricing, recognizing the unique circumstances of northern and remote communities,” according to the carbon tax rebate consultation document released by the Department of Finance.

The joint study is “pending completion,” the document reads. Its results will be considered as a carbon tax is enacted in the Yukon.

Today, asked for comment on the Yukon government’s decision to forgo its own carbon tax impact analysis, the official Opposition provided a statement to the Star.

“There is nothing preventing the premier from conducting this analysis and sharing this information with Yukon families so that they can understand how they will be impacted,” it reads.

“He promised Yukoners that his government would be open and transparent, and unfortunately, after over 400 days in office, he hasn’t even told Yukoners how the carbon tax scheme he signed onto will impact Yukon businesses or our electricity rates.”

Comments (11)

Up 2 Down 0

Groucho d'North on Jan 8, 2018 at 7:07 pm

Well if YG does not have the courage to perform this analysis, then tender it out to the financial community to provide a response. I wonder which would sting more?

Up 8 Down 1

Juniper Jackson on Jan 6, 2018 at 9:06 pm

As a senior I am barely making it.. Some 12 year old somewhere decided if a senior makes more than 30K, thats enough.. claw back some OAS. Paslowski made a serious error going after seniors; we vote...the PUG? cutting the medications from the formulary so that we have to pay for some of our meds..they did nothing about rent.. not everyone wants to live in a tiny apartment without pets or a garden..my rent went from 650. to 1,600 while my pensions went up 1.65..Yet, not eligible for any help because that same 12 year old decided you had enough.. I don't have a cell phone, or cable, I don't drink or smoke..but I love the privacy of my own place..at 78, I had to go back to work to keep it. Even working, that carbon tax is going to kill me.. it's a tax on a tax on a tax.. Liberals desperate for money.. this years tax revenue is already spent.. Where is the end? where does it stop? I have asked Larry repeatedly to take a stand against the Liberals frivolous spending, if Trudeau stopped tomorrow the deficit would be paid in 2054.. Silver? Spending like a drunken sailor.. As others have said..I'll be remembering this at the next election. I don't vote NDP, but I think Kate White might be the last really decent person in the Leg.

Up 9 Down 0

Dave The Voter on Jan 5, 2018 at 2:13 pm

The Yukon Liberals are desperately trying to find a way to both grovel at Trudeau's feet and simultaneously bury their heads in the sand about how the carbon tax will hurt ordinary Yukoners. They're jumping at any opportunity to somehow take credit for anything to do with so called climate action while at the same time trying to distance themselves from the facts of much harder they are making life for you and me.
Bagnell has obviously learned nothing when previously getting the boot from voters after he sold Yukoners out on the gun registry under the Chretien regime as now he's once again selling us out on the carbon tax under Trudeau. Meanwhile Silver the Nova Scotian schoolteacher is predictably just rolling over to anything the federal Liberals want, I for one will remember this come voting time.

Up 7 Down 0

The analysis is already done but not public on Jan 5, 2018 at 11:13 am

It will cost Yukoners over $100 million dollars in the first 4 years. We are already paying BC carbon tax and now AB new carbon tax.
Everything in the Yukon is effected by carbon tax because most of our goods come in from the outside.
The carbon tax take Canada back to the 1970's when taxes were multi layered. Tax on fuel is like that, three to four times plus the GST on top.

Up 8 Down 0

Al on Jan 4, 2018 at 3:15 pm

I think it is far more sinister then we can imagine. Having the Feds do an analysis on the impact of a program they want brought in is akin to having the fox tell the farmer not to worry about letting me into the hen house.
I do not trust either Hi Ho Silver or that other creature in Ottawa deciding my future income. Especially when it is predicated on a tax that is negative (of course one could argue that all taxes are negative) and will do zip to improve the lot of us sloths at the bottom of the economic chain.
Any half wit will know that the impact, on not just us, but all Canadians will do nothing but see costs rise. Those on fixed incomes will see more deterioration of buying power and will no doubt constrict already those in dire straights even more so.
Plan and simple the gangsters are out to rob us - something the Liberals are very good at...

Up 7 Down 0

lie detector on Jan 4, 2018 at 1:19 pm

The extortionist thieves are cowering by candlelight.. let's tax them for every breath they take and refund to the general population and see how long that lasts...

Carbon has nothing to do with solar cycles. Solar cycles define climate and temperatures - look up what a grand solar minimum is - the Thames will freeze over again just as it did over 300 years back.

Carbon tax is just more theft to prevent government and bank bankruptcies around the world and are nothing more than communist wealth redistribution schemes with a goal of equally impoverishing the common folk and ensuring a failed governing and power structure to continue just a bit longer, until everyone else freezes to death because of energy poverty.

Some idiots really want UN Agenda 21 to succeed. Let them lead by example and once they are gone freedom can reign for those who work to create prosperity and a better world.

Up 9 Down 0

ralpH on Jan 4, 2018 at 11:48 am

WHY NOT?? The impact will be substantial. Only reason for carbon tax is basically so users use less. A sin tax same as applied to liquor and smokes. What's the point if you do not know if you are having an impact or not.

Up 9 Down 0

Nile Nukon on Jan 4, 2018 at 9:18 am

The Libs could do this analysis in house. They have a whole department(Economic Development) that exists for exactly this type of work. They have even jammed it full of their own people. The joke, even among its employees, is that you need a Liberal Party membership to get a job there.

Up 9 Down 0

north_of_60 on Jan 4, 2018 at 1:10 am

"According to a secret memo from the federal Finance Department to the Minister of Finance, the Trudeau carbon tax would have cost Saskatchewan $260 million this year, rising to $1.3 billion a year by 2022.
"That’s a $3.9 BILLION cost over the next five years on our economy and families. Unless of course we don't have one, which we will not.
"The Trudeau carbon tax was supposed to take effect all across Canada on January 1, 2018. But Saskatchewan challenged the federal government and said NO."
--Brad Wall

The New Brunswick Liberal government is thumbing its nose at the Trudeau Liberals and joining Saskatchewan and Manitoba by refusing to bring in Ottawa's tax on carbon dioxide emissions. When Alberta’s NDP government introduced its carbon dioxide emissions tax, one of the ministers’ oft-repeated claims was that if they didn’t impose a “made in Alberta” carbon tax, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would impose his own Ottawa-concocted carbon tax, leaving taxpayers worse off.

More than a year later, New Brunswick is challenging that “we have no choice” assertion. Premier Brian Gallant’s government announced that instead of introducing a new carbon tax, they are re-branding a portion of their current gasoline tax as a carbon tax and redirecting cash from the existing tax into a fund to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
http://www.affordableenergy.ca/another_province_calling_trudeau_s_energy_tax_bluff

It's the coldest winter we've experienced in decades, but Sandy Silver, Trudeau and Notley believe heating homes in Canada is a luxury to be taxed.

Up 11 Down 0

jc on Jan 3, 2018 at 9:28 pm

This carbon tax thing is just another Liberal tax grab to pay off the huge deficit they created. In all my years I have seen the same thing - Liberals always stealing the fruits of the people's labor, while the Conservatives stood for letting people keep what they produce and earn. Liberals create social programs to aid the slothful and lazy etc. This is just vote buying to stay in power. And something else I noticed, the Conservatives haven't figured it out yet or they are under a moral decree.

Up 8 Down 0

ProScience Greenie on Jan 3, 2018 at 3:46 pm

Wages aren't going up to match the cost of absolutely everything so you'd think that the Finance minister would be at least a little bit concerned about how this carbon sin tax is going to impact Yukon citizens who happen to be the people that the minister is working for.

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