The Alberta government has filed an application at the federal court challenging a heating oil carbon tax exemption.
The feds last year made an exemption to the carbon tax for home heating oils, which Alberta’s Justice Minister Mickey Amery says is creating a “double standard”.
“We’ve got a federal government that is enacting policy to exempt certain Canadians who use a certain type of home heating fuel at the expense of others who do not. We think that’s got a number of different problems because it doesn’t really meet the intentions of the act.”
Home heating oils are predominately used in Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces, while many Albertans heat their homes with natural gas.
Amery says they’re asking the court to declare that the exemption is both unconstitutional and unlawful.
“With the federal government policies on home heating oil exemptions, they’ve created disproportionate advantages that have largely favoured those in Eastern Canada. In light of the fact that the federal government insists on moving forward with its carbon tax, we would like for them to apply the rules uniformly.”
Amery says their application argues that the exemption is inconsistent with the Government of Canada’s stated purpose for enacting the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act.
You can listen to the full interview below.
– Kyle Moore, Trending 55 Newsroom
