The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) said small businesses have not seen billions in promised carbon tax rebates, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. “There is no mechanism in place to return a dime to small businesses paying the federal carbon tax,” said CFIB President Dan Kelly in a statement. The CFIB said cabinet “has been sitting on $2.5 billion in carbon tax revenue collected since 2019, despite repeated promises to return it to small business.”Cabinet had promised a program to pay small business rebates. Promised payouts ranged from $1.3 billion in Ontario, $718 million in Alberta, $301 million in Saskatchewan and $144 million in Manitoba. Rebates in other eligible provinces — New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador — had not been calculated. Despite cabinet saying the carbon tax was useful, the CFIB acknowledged in a report in 2023 it was costly. While its calculations estimate small businesses pay close to half the carbon tax revenue collected by the Canadian government, it said 0.17% of them “were returned to small businesses between 2019 and 2023.” “Increases in the carbon tax coupled with minimal compensation are making the cost of doing business substantially higher, negatively impacting thousands of businesses,” it said. “Three in five small businesses have seen their overall energy costs increase substantially, over 10%, in the last year while the majority have used the same amount of energy as in previous years.”Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said at a House of Commons Finance Committee meeting in 2019 the program was “all stick and no carrot.”“When these small business people come into my office and say, ‘My costs are going up, I have to lay someone off or cut someone’s pay,’ I’ll say to them that some day, the government is going to announce a program whereby they can fill out a form and maybe staple on their receipts from gas and other expenses that have gone up, and maybe someone in Finance Canada or Environment Canada will reply to them and say, ‘Thanks for your letter,’” said Poilievre.Since Poilievre was critical of the program, former Finance Canada director general of corporate finance Samuel Millar said the federal government was developing the specifics. “It’s under development,” said Millar. The CFIB said in March the carbon tax repayments for small businesses cover a tiny portion of high fuel costs. READ MORE: Canadian small businesses shortchanged on carbon tax rebates, says advocacy group“To date, they have received little or nothing at all,” said CFIB senior policy analyst Taylor Brown. “Businesses want their money back.”
