Less than a year ago, our province was the only one in Canada standing up against the carbon tax. Our government is pleased to have another ally at the table fighting for pipelines and standing against the Trudeau carbon tax. With the election of a new government in Alberta, five provinces are fighting the federal government’s carbon tax grab. This represents 60 percent of Canada’s population!

When Ontario announced the intention to challenge the Trudeau carbon tax, they supported Saskatchewan in our court challenge. Saskatchewan made it clear that the imposition of the carbon tax is unconstitutional and should be scrapped. In April 2019, Saskatchewan stood with Ontario in their fight at the Ontario Court of Appeal.
The Trudeau carbon tax will hurt Saskatchewan families that need to heat their homes in the winter, feed and clothe their families and drive their kids to hockey practice. It will cause job reduction and move those jobs to other areas of the world that aren’t charging a carbon tax. In many cases, those areas are emitting more than we are here in this province in the same industries. The carbon tax imposed on our province is a poor environmental policy that doesn’t reduce emissions.

Even though nearly 90 percent of Saskatchewan people have expressed that they do not support a carbon tax, NDP Leader Ryan Meili has said he applauds the policy. Clearly, the NDP are out of touch with Saskatchewan on the carbon tax issue.

An article recently shared by Meili entitled, “Low Taxes are Nothing to Brag About”, confirms Meili is out of touch on taxation in general. In the article, Saskatchewan is actually condemned for not raising taxes. It says we should look to Quebec and their much higher tax rate as the way to go, and that we shouldn’t be proud of having such low tax rates.

When he shared the article, Meili could have said we should be proud of our low tax regime because lower taxes attract investment, which leads to more jobs. This leads to a better quality of life for everyone. He could have even said we want hard-working Saskatchewan people to keep more of their money. Rather, Meili offered that this article was an important reflection on how taxes play a role in sustaining a healthy society.

The NDP leader said on Budget Day that it was too early to discuss their plan for lower debt, increased spending, and how they would actually pay for things. However we are starting to see the NDP’s true colours, thanks to Twitter. Just like they did 21 times while serving in government, they would raise your taxes.

In contrast, your Saskatchewan Party government has always worked hard to keep taxes low and affordable. This spring, our government’s balanced budget included record spending on health and education with no tax increases and no new taxes.

Our government remains focused on policy issues important to our province. Unfortunately, we are being forced to contend with federal proposals that would damage the strong economy that allows us to provide services to the people of our province.

The carbon tax and other federal policies such as Bill C-48 and Bill C-69, will weaken our economic strengths. That is why we will continue to oppose them.

Bill C-48, the Oil Tanker Ban is a good example of bad policy. It selectively targets oil coming into the west coast. This makes it harder to get pipelines built and disproportionately hurts provinces that need to get oil to international markets. But, large tankers carrying imports of foreign oil off the St. Lawrence in Quebec is OK.

Bill C-69 was introduced with stated goals of streamlining or efficiency in getting resource projects built. The current project approval system isn’t broken. Bill C-69 will not improve it. It is only the political will to see our energy sector flourish and move forward that is broken. We cannot afford to subject these sectors to further delay and uncertainty.