SIMS: The carbon tax is leaving B.C. cold

As we’ve shown, the carbon tax piles on an extra $35 per month for natural gas. That could easily total between one hundred and two hundred dollars a year.

Now let’s add the cost of the commute for our two person working family.

Let’s say they live in the Fraser Valley, because housing in Vancouver is ridiculously expensive. Let’s say they drive a minivan for ferrying the kids around and a pickup truck to get to the job sites. That’s a 70 litre gas tank on the van and a 121 litre tank on the pickup. With the B.C. carbon tax costing 8.9 cents per litre of gasoline, and our commuter family filling up once a week, they pay an extra $882 per year due to the carbon tax. Then there’s GST on top of that.

Add the commuting cost to the home heating cost, and our B.C. family’s carbon tax could more than double the rebate that they aren’t getting.

Meanwhile, the B.C. government dumps the carbon taxes it collects into general revenue to the tune of $1.7 billion per year.

It’s wrong to punish British Columbians for keeping our families warm and getting to work to earn a living, but the government is doing it anyway.