As gas prices balloon and British Columbians plan summer road trips, a watchdog group is calling on the provincial government to slash fuel taxes.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation held a press conference at a New Westminster gas station Thursday to call on NDP Premier John Horgan to eliminate the carbon tax and slash Metro Vancouver’s TransLink tax.
“A lot of folks, as we've heard over the last several weeks, are finding it difficult to fill up their vehicles,” the federation’s B.C. director Kris Sims said. “These are people who are commuting into work, they're dropping off their kids at school, they're picking up groceries, and now a lot of them are hoping to plan for their summer vacations.”
If gas costs $1.69 per litre, 54 cents of that goes to various taxes, according to the CTF. The carbon tax accounts for 8.9 cents, while the provincial excise tax and TransLink tax account for 8.5 cents and 17 cents respectively, the group claims.
Taxes on a litre of gas in Metro Vancouver have risen a total of 2.5 cents since 2018, Sims said.
Sims said the province should eliminate the carbon tax and the excise tax and slash the TransLink tax by almost half to 10 cents per litre.
“We, as always, are calling for lower taxes on gasoline, not higher,” she said.
Glacier Media requested an interview with New Westminster MLA Judy Darcy and Bruce Ralston, minister of jobs, trade and technology. Neither responded by deadline, but a spokesperson issued a statement attributed to Ralston.
According to the statement, gas prices have risen by 40 cents in B.C. over the last three months while the carbon tax has only risen by one cent.
“The other 39-cent increase is going to oil and gas companies who are gouging British Columbians. This kind of proposal (from the CTF) will not bring relief, but instead, as many experts have said, would act as a giant subsidy to the oil industry. Additionally, it would result in massive cuts to important services and transit investments that people depend on.”
But Sims said TransLink is an overfunded organization that could afford losing revenue from the gas tax by cutting executives pay.
“We think they need to do better budgeting,” she said. “We think that they need to live more within their means.”
And Sims said even the non-tax increases in gas prices can be partially blamed on Horgan.
If the province allowed the Trans Mountain pipeline to be twinned, the added capacity for diluted bitumen would make way for more gasoline to be shipped to the Lower Mainland in the existing pipeline, she said.
Horgan could also encourage more refineries to be built in B.C. to reduce gas prices, she said.
- Kevin Gawley, Burnaby Now
