An NDP MLA is challenging Skeena MLA Ellis Ross and fellow BC United Party (BCUP) members to address their leader’s sudden shift in position on the carbon-tax credit.
In a press release Dec. 1, the NDP’s Ravi Parmar accused BCUP leader Kevin Falcon of showing a “staggering lack of principle” by reversing his support of the provincial carbon tax in order to lure conservative voters.
“For 15 years, Kevin Falcon proudly supported the carbon tax,” Parmar said. “But now that [B.C. Conservative leader] John Rustad is campaigning against it, Falcon is suddenly saying he’s against it too.
“BCUP MLAs like Ellis Ross need to answer for their leader’s complete hypocrisy.”
The NDP sent out releases to newsrooms in six other BCUP ridings, issuing identical challenges to those MLAs.
Ross dismissed the assertion BCUP is following Rustad’s lead, instead saying it’s a simple matter of economics, that the NDP is ignoring the skyrocketing cost of living.
“It’s typical of this NDP government,” Ross said. “They will talk about everything but the central issue, and that’s affordability. When you have families with jobs going to the food bank, we have a problem. When they can’t afford their rent, we have a problem. But instead of figuring out this issue, they raise the carbon tax.”
B.C. United, formerly the B.C. Liberals, introduced the B.C. carbon tax in 2008 under then-premier Gordon Campbell.
But on Oct. 31, Falcon pledged to abolish the carbon tax on all fuels if his party is elected to govern next year. Additionally, he committed to reducing the provincial fuel tax, which is currently approximately 15 cents per litre on gasoline and diesel, and to eliminating the carbon tax on all home-heating fuels.
Ross said his party has no choice but to scrap NDP’s CleanBC program, to which the carbon tax credit is central. He accused the NDP of stripping the carbon tax of its neutrality, channeling the revenues to a government slush fund instead of to the taxpayer where it was promised.
The CleanBC initiative aims to lower climate-changing emissions 40 per cent by 2030, a program Ross said could potentially cripple big industries like LNG, which the BCUP will be central to their energy and climate-action plan if elected.
“They refuse to answer questions about why they’re increasing the carbon tax,” said Ross, “and they refuse to acknowledge all these new taxes are part of the affordability crisis.”