Moncton’s David Thibodeau isn’t happy about the rising cost of gas now that the federal carbon tax is in effect.
The carbon tax on a litre of gasoline rose to 14.3 cents, up from 11 cents under New Brunswick’s provincial carbon tax that went into effect in 2020.
Diesel rose by almost 4 cents a litre and heating oil went up 20 cents a litre. Additionally, on July 7, the Clean Fuel Adjuster charge will be applied to wholesalers which will further drive up prices.
“I think it’s atrocious, the cost of living is going to go up so much,” Thibodeau said on Saturday. “It’s going to cost so much money to even get our groceries even walking to the store to get anything but gas, so it’s absolutely atrocious.” he said.
The tax was introduced to encourage Canadians to decrease their fossil fuel consumption.
New Brunswick’s provincial government has been running an ad campaign urging the federal government to delay the changes due to the rising cost of living. St. Thomas University political scientist Jamie Gillies said this was an unusual move.
“It’s just kind of out of character for our government,” he said in an interview on Friday. “Not to mention the damage it can do for intergovernmental affairs between the (federal government) and the province, particularly since we rely so much on equalization and transfer payments,” he said.
He suggested the ad campaign was an attempt to deflect from the provincial government’s multiple controversies, such as policy 713.
“I’m not sure a gas tax attack ad is going to save or improve (Higgs’) standing with New Brunswick voters.
UNB economist Herb Emery said while the tax may have an effect on the price of goods, there are other, larger, factors contributing to inflation.
“It’s not a persistent increase in price it’s a one-time step so we may see things get bumped along,” he said in an interview on Friday. “The bigger determinant of what happens with prices of things is really what happens with interest rates, consumer spending, whether the price of crude oil goes down,” he said.
New Brunswickers will begin to receive quarterly rebates related to the carbon tax in October.
The federal government claims the rebates will make up for the price increases.
“What people would typically have preferred is some kind of phasing in of these taxes of something like a penny per month so it’s less obvious,” Emery said.
Emery said there was hope inflation could be tamed over the next year.
“The price of crude oil went up because of Russia and Ukraine, we’ve had disrupted supply chain and we’ve had a lot of consumer spending competing for scarce goods and driving things up. All of those pressures are expected to come off,” he said.