The provincial finance ministers brought up the unfairness of the carbon tax break on heating oil and not other home heating methods during a meeting with federal Finance Minister Chyrstia Freeland.According to Donna Harpauer, Saskatchewan deputy premier and minister of finance, Freeland showed “complete disregard” to the finance ministers’ concerns over the carbon tax break for mainly Atlantic Canadian households while leaving the rest of Canada out in the cold.“I am extremely disappointed with the complete disregard from Minister Freeland to speak about the carbon tax crisis created by this federal government last week, when they chose to announce their unfair treatment of Canadians across the country,” said Harpauer.Nate Horner, Alberta president of Treasury Board and minister of finance, also raised the carbon tax break issue amid an “affordability crisis” and the Trudeau government slamming the door on any more relief.“There are other critical conversations happening across the country, including the federal government’s changes to the carbon tax. We have all heard multiple premiers raise concerns about the federal government’s recent actions on carbon tax carve-outs for some provinces and several finance ministers again raised the urgency of this issue during our call, including me,” said Horner.“Canadians remain in the midst of an affordability crisis and the carbon tax continues to hurt us all. While a number of us had hoped to also address this issue during the call, I am very eager to have a fulsome conversation at our next FPT, scheduled for December 14 to15. At that time, I hope we can discuss cutting the carbon tax so Albertans and Canadians will no longer be penalized according to where they live and which members of Parliament they elect.”Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe told the media the best solution to getting a carbon tax break was not to elect more Liberals but fewer of them.“Part of the argument that they (Trudeau government) put forward as well is that we should elect more Liberals in the Prairie provinces if we want an exemption,” said Moe. “What I would suggest is that we should actually elect less Liberals across Canada and I think that would solve our problem just as quickly.”
