Ottawa, ON – Yesterday, Conservatives brought forward a motion calling on Carney to adopt the Conservatives’ plan to suspend all taxes on fuel until the end of the year and give Canadians a break at the pump. The plan to eliminate the Fuel Excise Tax, GST and Clean Fuel Standard would save 25 cents per litre – about $20 to fill up a minivan or saving a family of four $1,218 a year.
The motion comes as Carney continues to follow Poilievre’s lead with a plan that delivers a third of the relief Conservatives proposed, for a third of the year. The Liberals continue to look to the Conservatives for their ideas, with Mark Carney announcing his own policy just one week after Poilievre wrote to him calling to immediately suspend all federal gas taxes. While any relief for Canadians suffering at the pumps and grocery aisles is welcome, the Conservative plan would save 15 cents more per litre than what Carney announced and for longer.
Since being announced two weeks ago, the Conservative plan has received widespread support. Nearly 39 per cent of Canadians polled by Bloomberg said that reducing taxes on fuel is their preferred response from the federal government to the rising price at the pump. That includes 55 per cent of those in Atlantic Canada, almost 43 per cent in the Prairies and 41 per cent of those in Ontario.
As Canadians pay 35 per cent more due to the sudden rise in world oil prices, Liberal taxes drive the cost up further. Compared to the US, Canadians pay much more per litre, with prices being almost 20 per cent higher, regardless of global impacts on the price of oil.
Meanwhile, higher oil prices mean higher revenues for the government. Former Liberal top economic adviser Tyler Meredith estimated that for every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil, the federal government receives roughly $2 billion in additional revenue. With oil trading at $40 higher than the pre-war baseline, that adds up to $8 billion in additional revenue.
Just $5.25 billion of that extra revenue would be used to bring Canadians much-needed relief every time they fill up. The savings wouldn’t just be limited to personal vehicles: lower diesel prices would reduce the cost of shipping food, homebuilding materials and other essential goods across the country, making everything more affordable.
Scotiabank recently projected that a sustained increase in the price of oil will result in $1 billion in extra annual spending on food and energy for Canada’s bottom two income quintiles. They reported that “lower income household spending is disproportionately skewed towards essentials with limited flexibility to absorb price shocks and lower lifts from wage income,” as RBC projects that inflation is expected to rise by 3 per cent annually.
While Carney voted against our Conservative motion to bring Canadian car users a real tax cut at the pump, other countries are introducing even greater relief. Ireland is further reducing their tax by 10 cents a litre on gasoline and suspending the increase of their carbon tax to provide relief. Germany put forward a plan to cut their gasoline tax by 17 cents per litre, while US states, including Indiana, Georgia and Utah, have all put forward suspensions of their gas taxes.
Cutting fuel taxes won’t just lower the cost at the pump, but the cost of everything else shipped by a truck or train that uses fuel. It’s time for Carney to listen to Canadians and support the Conservatives’ plan to leave more money in people’s pockets to make Canada affordable at home, safe at home and strong at home.