Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is flatly denying that her government’s looming fuel surcharge hike is remotely close to Ottawa’s “punitive” carbon tax — in practice or principle.“One thing I would say is that we have a fuel tax that adjusts with the price of the pump. And I wish the federal government would do the same thing. Theirs just keeps going up. Ours on the other hand, when WTI (West Texas Intermediate) hits $90 a barrel again, ours will be coming completely off,” she said in Calgary on Friday.Smith has come under fire for criticizing federal carbon rates even as the UCP is set to increase its own Even though Alberta has the highest inflation rate in the country.On Thursday Finance Minister Nate Horner announced Alberta’s fuel tax would be going up four cents to 13 cents a litre, effective April 1 — the same day the federal carbon charge will tack on another three cents, bringing it up to 17 cents.That means motorists will be paying 30 cents in fuel charges — on top of GST..“There's sort of a an implicit understanding that when people use the roads, they should pay a portion of the cost so that we can continue to repair them.“Premier Danielle Smith.The tax hike has found some unlikely critics. Multiple candidates for the opposition NDP have criticized it even though they were the ones who brought in Alberta’s consumer carbon tax to begin with.Even Environment Minster Steven Guilbeault has chastised Smith for bringing back despite her bitter opposition to the federal one.Even among allies, Kris Sims, Alberta director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, wrote in a post to X that the Alberta government’s decision was “very disappointing.”“Easy to throw shoes at the Trudeau government over its callous increase of the carbon tax, but then cranking up your own fuel tax on the same day? Not good,” Sims wrote..But Smith said there’s a difference between a ‘user fee’ used to repair roads and a naked tax that impacts the price of almost everything. She said even EV owners who will be forced to cough up $200 on their registration agree that it’s reasonable and actually still come out ahead.“There's sort of a an implicit understanding that when people use the roads, they should pay a portion of the cost so that we can continue to repair them. It's part of the reason we brought in an electric vehicle tax as well this year to create that kind of parity,” she continued.She also said she campaigned on the notion of balanced budgets. And with $1.2 billion in fuel charge revenues the surplus would still only be less than $370 million if North American oil prices were to average $74 a barrel. In the last quarter they were about $72..”The real problem is the federal government is continuing to just add punitive taxes onto people without any thought of of the of where those dollars are going”Danielle Smith.And she continued to pound away at the idea of framing the federal tax as a ‘rebate’. Even though the Liberal government is touting $1,800 in repayments for an average Alberta family, Smith said it still doesn’t cover the extra amount they’ll pay.“That's the thinking that we have. But the real problem is the federal government is continuing to just add punitive taxes onto people without any thought of of the of where those dollars are going,” she said.“We also know that the amount amount of rebate is actually lower than the cost people pay. And that's where the real problem happens.”
