This week, the federal government announced two aspects of a strategy to help people save money when it comes to the climate tax.
One of the announcements that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made on Thursday, October 26th is that in two weeks time, there will be a temporary, three-year “pause” on pollution (fuel charge) on deliveries of heating oil, which many people in Greater Victoria and Vancouver Island still use for heating their homes.
BC’s Minister of Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation, Josie Osborne, expressed concern about this pause in a statement released soon after Prime Minister Trudeau’s announcement.
“We just learned of this federal announcement, which is unfortunate, because BC is leading Canada with our CleanBC climate action plan,” said Osborne. “We expect better partnership from the federal government.”
“Regarding carbon pricing on home heating oil, even though that kind of home heating is less common in BC than other parts of the country, we know there are British Columbians who still rely on that. We will be taking action in BC.”
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The other announcement made by Trudeau is that the government is going forward with doubling the pollution price rebate (Climate Action Incentive Payment) for rural communities.
The rate will be increasing from 10% to 20% of the baseline amount and that will come into effect starting in April of next year.
The federal government says that people living in rural communities face unique realities, and this top-up will help put money back in the pockets of families who deal with higher energy costs because they live outside of large urban centres.
According to Statistics Canada, a community is considered ‘rural’ or ‘small’ if it is not a ‘census metropolitan area (CMA)’, meaning it has a population of less than 50,000.
