Tax on a tax remains

Photo: Contributed

Federal government rejects e-petition calling for an end to GST on carbon tax.

A local politician's effort to end a federal tax on B.C.'s carbon tax has come to naught.

Vernon city councillor Bob Spiers launched a parliamentary e-petition, garnering 1,596 signatures from across the country between January and May, in a bid to get the matter before the House of Commons.

And get there it did.

In May, North Okanagan-Shuswap MP Mel Arnold presented the e-petition to the Commons, forcing the government to respond.

“Pricing carbon pollution is a central component of the pan-Canadian framework on Clean Growth and Climate  Change that was announced by Canada’s first ministers in December 2016,” said a statement issued by Liberal MP Ginette Petitpas Taylor on behalf of the finance minister this week. “The pan-Canadian approach to pricing carbon pollution will expand the application of carbon pricing, already in place in Canada’s four largest provinces, to the rest of Canada by 2018.”

In other words, once the other provinces impose the carbon tax on sales of gasoline and home heating fuel, that will be taxed by Ottawa, too.

In B.C. and Alberta alone, the federal government stands to raise as much as $280 million in GST revenue off provincial carbon taxes in the next two years, despite claims carbon taxes would be revenue neutral for Ottawa, according to a report.

“The previous government didn't address it, and now all the provinces could be saddled with this carbon tax and the GST,” said Spiers.

Spiers said his last hope is in a private member's bill, which is expected to get second reading when the Commons returns after the summer break, although he is doubtful that will pass.