It takes Bill Moody about $60 to fill the tank of his Dodge Dart these days.
“I put in $20 today, just to get by, because I can't afford to fill my tank. Seriously, I can't afford to fill my tank,” the St. Albert resident and cook said as he stood between a gas pump and his car outside the Petro-Canada off Gate Avenue and St. Albert Trail on Monday afternoon.
In response to rising fuel costs and the federal carbon tax, Premier Jason Kenney announced a fuel tax relief starting next month and a retroactive rebate on electricity for Albertans.
Starting April 1, the province will pause the collection of the fuel tax on gasoline and diesel for a $0.13-per-litre savings. The fuel tax for marked gasoline and marked diesel will also be paused, which will save Albertans $0.04 per litre.
The tax break will be reviewed on a quarterly basis and will be tied to the average price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI).
“This relief is based on a sliding scale for oil prices when the price of oil is over $90 — that's West Texas Intermediate per barrel — the fuel tax will be removed completely,” said Kenney during the March 7 announcement.
If the price of oil is less than $80 per barrel of WTI, the fuel tax will be reinstated.
Kenney said this “bold decision” will give relief to Albertans struggling to keep up with increasing costs, adding this will be a fiscally responsible way to protect Alberta's budget and fiscal health, “because as those oil prices go up, so, too, do revenues to the provincial treasury.”
Also starting on April 1 is a $0.03 increase to the federal carbon tax rate on gasoline. The rate is going from just under $0.09 per litre to just under $0.11 per litre.
“I really don't understand how Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley can possibly think that now's the right time to add even more costs to day-to-day living with their punishing carbon tax,” said Kenney during the conference.
Moody doesn’t have an issue with the carbon tax.
“I don’t have a problem with the carbon tax. I understand it and I stand behind it,” said Moody.
He does, however, think the government should be doing more to help people.
“It's so difficult with this COVID. There's so many people out of work, wo many people looking for work, and with costs of gas being what it is, it's just hurting everybody,” he said.
Moody said the fuel tax break will help.
Nick Edwards was also filling up at the Petro-Canada off Gate Avenue and St. Albert Trail. Edwards works in St. Albert but lives in Edmonton said gas is way too expensive.
When asked what he thought of the fuel tax break, Edwards's answer was crisp.
“It would be nice,” he said.
Bree H., who did not want to give her last name, was fueling up her car at the Circle K along Sir Winston Churchill Avenue and Gainsborough Avenue. She said it is about time we get a tax break on fuel.
Bree said COVID meant a lot of people lost their jobs and the funding the government offered people who had lost their jobs due to COVID wasn’t enough to pay bills and also survive.
“Now that we're just coming out of it, we're all broke and looking for work. And they're hiking gas prices to a point where it's almost impossible to even go anywhere to look for jobs.
“If they're not going to lower the prices anytime soon, they might as well give us some of our money back,” she said.
The province also announced a total $150 retroactive rebate on electricity, spread over three months, for Albertans who have consumed less than 250 megawatt hours of electricity.
The legislation for this rebate still needs to be introduced and Kenney said it may take a bit of time for Albertans to actually receive the rebate, as the province has to work with more than 45 energy providers in the province.
Bree said her electricity bill went up $30.
“Honestly, I would be fine with them not doing any rebates and just lowering the prices of things to what they used to be,” she said.
“I had no problems paying the electricity bills what they used to be — what they were for years.”
