Business community anxious about carbon tax

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This article was published 30/03/2019 (2467 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

With the federal carbon tax coming into effect on April 1, businesses are feeling the heat and saying the implementation is unfair.

Bernie Whetter, owner of The Green Spot, said the carbon tax will have a huge impact on his business, despite commercial greenhouses being eligible for an 80 per cent rebate on the tax.

“It hurts; I certainly feel as a citizen of Canada and a member of the global world here that we’ve got to take some responsibility to the carbon pollution, so we all have to do our part, but what really hurts is when it comes down to it and costs you dollars and cents, and I think we all feel that.”

Starting Monday, Manitobans will start paying more for fuel, natural gas and propane under the federal government’s carbon-tax plan. The tax will raise the cost of gas by about four cents a litre, a move by the government to make polluters pay for the cost of emissions and hopefully reduce greenhouse gas levels.

Whetter said his building is heated with natural gas, which will see a tax of just under four per cent added by the federal government’s plan. This is on top of a price increase this year from Manitoba Hydro, which he said could be as high as 30 per cent.

It’s “really significant,” as heating is already the business’s second-largest cost after staffing.

Jonathan Alward, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’s director of provincial affairs for Manitoba, said the carbon tax is unfair and unaffordable for small businesses.

“I think for sure it’s going to hit small business; across the province they are really going to be feeling it the hardest, and I think a lot of that really starts with how unfair the plan is.”

Under the current plan, residents will see a rebate of 90 per cent of the cost of the tax, while the majority of businesses will see a rebate of seven per cent.

“Even though they’re footing nearly half the bill, they’re expected to take on many of those extra costs.”

The CFIB is calling on the federal government not to impose the tax on Monday, instead opting for other ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as investment in green technology and access to technology that allows businesses to do that.

“Business owners want to reduce emissions, and they’ve already taken huge steps to do so; it’s about finding the right way to do it, and we think there are better ways to reduce emissions that won’t impact the small-business owners.”

Another problem is the lack of details of how and when the rebate is going to happen or how businesses can apply to get it.

“There’s complicated paperwork they have to fill out, and it’s an absolute maze trying to find the correct information and, in some cases, if you don’t get it done in time you’re going to be facing stiff fines.”

The trucking sector will be one of the hardest-hit, according to Manitoba Trucking Association executive director Terry Shaw. Most heavy trucks run on diesel fuel, which will go up by around 5.37 cents per litre with the carbon tax.

As a result, the cost of almost everything will rise, not just fuels, with transportation costs trickling down onto the products they ship.

“Everybody eats, everybody’s job in some form relies on trucking; be it through the delivery of raw materials, or the manufacturing process, or the retail goods they sell or the delivery of the finished products they manufacture, everybody is going to be impacted directly or indirectly. It’s significant.”

Whetter said he might have no choice but to pass on the extra costs to the consumer. The Green Spot is being hit twice by the carbon tax, once in heating costs, but also on everything they have to have delivered, such as pots, tools and other things the store sells. He expects the costs of everything to rise as a result.

“We strive to operate as efficiently as we possibly can and keep our costs down, but the only way we can do it is if we’re operating efficiently; the only way we can cover this is by increasing our prices, and that hurts our customers’ pocketbook.”

“We’re anxious to see how this all unravels … we really won’t know until we start seeing it on invoices that come from our gas company.”

» dmay@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @DrewMay_