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Carbon tax continues to be hot topic; Shields
Posted on October 3, 2018 by Taber Times
EARLY DAYS: Premier Jason Kenney — at the time seeking the leadership of the PCs — makes a stump speech at a open house with MP Shields in Taber in 2017. TIMES FILE PHOTOPoll
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By Cole Parkinson
Taber Times
cparkinson@tabertimes.com
With a variety of issues happening at the federal level, the Municipal District of Taber council were given a firsthand account of what may be coming down very soon.
During council’s regular meeting on September 11, Bow River MP Martin Shields touched on a number of issues that Canadians are dealing with.
One of the biggest issues that has been dominating talks had been the North America Free Trade Agreement with Canada reaching an 11th-hour agreement earlier this week.
While NAFTA continued to dominate countrywide concerns, in Alberta the carbon tax is still being brought up quite frequently.
With the M.D. of Taber looked at as a major agriculture centre, Shields touched on how much impact is being felt in the ag sector.
Right now, the tax is at $30 a tonne and Shields says it can be a heavy burden on farmers.
“That’s a huge hit in the sense of rural agriculture and a direct hit in the sense of if you run a farming operation, you have diesel in your machine and the bigger the operation, the bigger direct cost. You can be anywhere between $10,000 to $20,000 that could affect you on a $30 carbon tax. The ag sector is going to face that cost as an input cost as well as the other costs that come subsidiary to it on a carbon tax,” he explained.
He also pointed out that even if people don’t know it, the carbon tax is affecting them too.
“The other side that people don’t pay much attention to, it got a little bit of play in the Calgary School Board, is issues with busing. People don’t understand that everyone is getting hit by the carbon tax, it hit the school systems but people don’t understand that it’s happening,” he explained. “Premier (Rachel Notley) has said we aren’t going past $30 but $30 is a hit now and that hurts.”
Shifting from the carbon tax, Shields went on to discuss the ongoing process with the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline that was purchased by the Canadian government for $4.5 billion this year.
“So what happens with Kinder Morgan? It’s another one of uncertainty. In Alberta, it is a significant one. The oil sector in Calgary, there is 30 per cent vacancy in downtown Calgary and they’re re-negotiating their space lease because they will probably reduce it by 60 to 70 per cent where they are at,” said Shields, and he also stated he believes the Alberta capital will soon see a downturn with the delay. “The Kinder Morgan will hurt Edmonton because there was a lot of contracting based out of Edmonton by Kinder Morgan. The downturn that has been faced in Calgary the last three or four years hasn’t effected Edmonton as directly as the oil sands are still working on finishing projects up there. But shutting down Kinder Morgan will have a more direct impact to Edmonton.”
After the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the government’s approval of the expansion Trans Mountain project cited due to the fact they didn’t sufficiently fulfill their duties to consult local First Nations groups or the effect of increased marine traffic on local wildlife, the project has come to a halt.
With this in mind, Shields noted the government should have got started on the project much earlier but failed to do so which resulted in a further delay.
“We believe the Liberals could have been with Kinder Morgan a long time ago, a year and a half to two years, and they could have been taking action to facilitate a private company to get that thing done. They didn’t do it, they bought an old pipeline and now a decision has been made, what are they going to do?” he asked. “They could have proceeded in a number of different ways. They could have said ‘we’re going to appeal this’, now an appeal process in the Supreme Court is risky and it would take a year and a half to two years but they could have said they would do it. They could have also said ‘we’re going to start a consultation process as the court ruled on both the indigenous and on the water.’ They could have said that immediately but they are still saying nothing.”
The downturn in the oil sector has been steady throughout the past few years and the further delay in the Kinder Morgan project has people on edge, according to Shields.
Both the banks and smaller oil companies have taken notice and with further delays projected for the project, a lot of companies are left in limbo until something concrete comes one way or the other.
“The junior oil companies in Alberta are now speaking up and saying ‘we’ve been able to sort of get by, but if this continues, the banks will not continue lending us money.’ This has put Alberta in a real quandary of risk in the sense of oil, gas and resource development,” added Shields.
Kinder Morgan has also reportedly started moving towards facilitating a sell-off of their Canadian portion of the business and the reports are suggesting they may see as much as $2.4 billion if they decided to move forward. While that has yet to be seen, Shields is adamant the Canadian government needs to work on putting things together to start construction on the addition to the pipeline.
“We need to get Kinder Morgan going. The financial world needs to see that we can develop in this country,” said Shields. “If we can’t get Kinder Morgan done, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
One response to “Carbon tax continues to be hot topic; Shields”
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Apparently Shields doesn’t believe in lawsuits that have been the problem with the pipeline. You can’t ram it through without settling the lawsuits first.Why didn’t the conservatives start it much earlier as he suggests? Maybe he would like to explain why the carbon tax is so successful elsewhere and hasn’t destroyed the people like he claims it will. Maybe he should read “When it comes to emissions Sweden has it’s cake and eats it too” and the one put out by the Simon Fraser University “The shocking truth about B.C.’s Carbon Tax it works’.
The true conservatives aren’t interested in these Reformers who aren’t interested in trying to do something about our pollution. Oilmen have been stating for years if we don’t our children are going to face massive lawsuits. This study proves it” Oilsands development polluting Alberta lakes Study” As oilmen state it’s only a matter of time before Sask. and Manitoba starts suing us.