Eby should fight for British Columbians struggling to pay their bills

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Prime Minister David Eby needs to decide who he works for: British Columbians or Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

British Columbians surely didn’t want Eby to make life more expensive by raising taxes, but Eby decided to stand with Trudeau and pass a carbon tax increase anyway.

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On April 1, Eby raised the carbon tax in British Columbia. Add that carbon tax to all the other fuel taxes in the province and drivers here will be hit with a huge bill. In the Lower Mainland, drivers will now pay a total of 81 cents in taxes per liter of gasoline. People in Greater Victoria will pay around 74 cents per liter in tax. Residents of the rest of the province will pay 67 cents per liter in taxes.

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British Columbia’s carbon tax increase of about three cents per liter came on the same day that the Trudeau government increased the federal carbon tax in all other provinces except Quebec, which receives preferential treatment from Trudeau and can pay a lower carbon tax.

The federal government implemented a safeguard. Requires provinces that have their own carbon taxes, like BC, to increase their provincial tax at the same rate as the federal carbon tax.

All of the provincial premiers where the carbon tax increase took place called on Trudeau to reconsider. All Prime Ministers except Eby.

In Manitoba, NDP Premier Wab Kinew is introducing a proposal to exempt his province from supporting the federal carbon tax. Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal Premier Andrew Furey wrote a letter to Trudeau asking him to cancel the carbon tax increase. In Saskatchewan, Premier Scott Moe went a step further and stopped collecting the federal carbon tax on home heating fuels.

But British Columbians haven’t heard from Eby.

It should be an easy decision for Eby to oppose federal support. A recent Léger Survey found that three-quarters of British Columbians wanted our prime minister to oppose the carbon tax increase.

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The carbon tax is unpopular for a reason: people are already struggling to make ends meet. Last year saw the Greater demand for food banks in BC history. It’s the “hardest time ever to afford a home,” according to erythrocytes, and Vancouver and Victoria experienced the “largest deterioration” in housing affordability across the country. Over the summer, more than half of British Columbians were within $200 or less of not being able to Pay your bills.

Raising the carbon tax makes it more expensive to transport food to store shelves, drive to work, or take the kids to soccer practice.

The government’s carbon tax rebate plan also seems like a bad joke for taxpayers.

He median family income in British Columbia it is $99,610, according to recent government statistics. For a family of four, the discounts disappear when they earn more than $94,845. Those numbers mean the average family in British Columbia won’t receive a cent from the provincial government through the flawed carbon tax rebate scheme.

In 2024, Eby’s government expects to receive $2.6 billion in carbon tax revenue, while only returning $1 billion to taxpayers. That means British Columbians are $1.6 billion worse off because of the carbon tax this year alone.

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Standing up to Trudeau against the carbon tax increase should have been an easy decision for Eby. But he decided to approach the federal Liberals.

Eby should fight for the British Columbians he was elected to represent. And that means fighting to make life more affordable by opposing Trudeau’s carbon tax support and eliminating the tax altogether.

Carson Binda is the BC director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

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