(Cam Lee/northeastNOW Staff)

By Mat Barrett

Carbon Tax

Melfort Mayor weighs in on latest carbon tax announcement

Mar 4, 2019 | 3:30 PM

The City of Melfort’s Mayor is weighing in on the latest announcement that the federal carbon tax is coming to Saskatchewan.

A government release states that the tax will be applied to all bills received by SaskPower and SaskEnergy customers. The increase will result in an average of about $2 tacked onto power, and about $9 on natural gas for the rest of 2019.

Rick Lang said the city is not supportive of the increase.

“It’s definitely going to have an impact on some citizens in the City of Melfort with respect to the SaskPower and SaskEnergy bills,” Lang told northeastNOW. “And unfortunately for many people in the community, or certainly for some people in the community, they’re going to have to find a way to make that work.”

Creighton fire update

Creighton mayor says fire in Manitoba thankfully having little impact

6h ago

Nerlien calling it quits

'An honour and a privilege': Nerlien discusses departure from politics

7h ago

Semi-final Potential

Mustangs pull off another comeback victory to clinch playoff spot

May 14, 2024

“So, is the city pleased about it? I would say not at all.” _{-Mayor Rick Lang}

Lang added that the increase won’t affect the 2019 budget, but it could have an impact on future budget talks.

“This particular Council has worked very hard to keep any increases to a minimum,” Lang said. “So we’ll have to look at that at the end of 2019 and see what impact it had, and see what kind of increase that will dictate or not.”

From the perspective of the City of Melfort, they have done a few things that Lang hopes could help minimize the impact of the carbon tax.

“We’ve already done some improvements with respect to the LED lighting that we’ve installed in the [Northern Lights] Palace,” Lang said. “So that was intended to save us some cost with respect to SaskPower. Whether those savings will mitigate a carbon tax, or partly mitigate a carbon tax, I guess we will have to wait and see.”

The Mayor said he, and the city will continue to back the provinces fight against the Federal Carbon Tax.

In the release sent out by the provincial government, Minister responsible for SaskPower Dustin Duncan said “SaskPower worked hard to ensure there would be no rate increase this year. The federal government is imposing a carbon tax that will take more than $52 million this year and $546 million through 2022 from SaskPower customers.”

The increase takes effect on April 1.

–

mat.barrett@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @matbarrett6