The British Columbia Government is quickly tracking the end of its consumer carbon tax before lifting the federal equivalent on Tuesday, with Prime Minister David Eby saying that consumers must expect an immediate relief of prices in gas pumps.
The NDP bill that modifies the BC carbon tax law to establish the consumer rate at $ 0 has approved its first reading, with BC Green Mla Rob Bottell the solitary dissident vote.
The EBY government then successfully sought accelerated consideration to approve legislation in one day, after a two -week break in the sessions of the legislature.
The prime minister said at a press conference that consumers must wait for a gas price drop from 17 cents per liter when the consumer tax rise on Tuesday.
The leader of the NDP representatives, Mike Farnworth, had told the legislature that the approval of the bill was a “issue of trust” for the government, and President Raj Chouhan then then ruled the bill sufficiently urgent and limited to comply with the rapid monitoring test.
The opposition finance critic, Peter Milobar, said that the Government could have dealt with the bill before remembering the legislature, and instead waited until “11 hour.
He said that the government’s approach has been “with the hamlet”, unfairly cutting the discussion between the members of the legislature.
“Essentially we have a couple of hours trying to quickly improvise a conscious response of something that has been in the public conversation for quite some time,” said Milobar in the legislature on Monday.
BC’s green leader Jeremy Valeriote said his party could not support the approval of the bill in a single day.
He said that the members of the Legislature “need time to seek government responses” on how it intends to solve problems, including the end of the reimbursement of the climate action tax that BC residents expected quarterly and the important financial deficit that the end of the tax goes to the province.
“We do not consider to comply with the convenience of fuel producers or align with other provinces is sufficient reason for urgency,” Valeriote told the legislature.
A joint statement issued by the EBY office and the Ministries of Energy and Finance says that canceling the tax and credit will have an estimated impact of $ 1.99 billion in the next fiscal year.
“The province will restructure the programs financed by carbon tax revenues to minimize the impact on the BC budget, while supporting people in British Columbia to achieve climatic objectives,” says the statement.
Eby has said that the province would continue to ensure that large industrial emitters pay through the carbon pricing system based on production.
Tariff response rollback
The legislative rupture also included a significant reversal of the response proposed by the Government to US tariffs on Canadian assets.
Monday’s session is the first since EBY announced the elimination of a part of the controversial tariff response bill that would have given its cabinet sweeping powers to address the challenges “that arise from the actions of a foreign jurisdiction” without being discussed in the legislature.
Eby said last week that the bill was still necessary, but that it required more safeguards after interested parties expressed concerns about overreach, while BC opposition conservatives have said that everything must be discarded.
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, has said that he will bring new “reciprocal” tariffs against Canada from April 2, while Prime Minister Mark Carney has responded that Canada would implement new retaliation rates if the president continues.
