The Government of Canada's Carbon Tax
The Government of Canada has imposed a federal carbon tax that will impact your power and natural gas bills starting April 1, 2019. The Government of Canada will apply the GST to the federal carbon tax. The Government of Saskatchewan will not charge PST on this new tax.
What you will notice on your SaskPower and SaskEnergy bills
Starting in April 2019, there will be a new section clearly identified as the Federal Carbon Tax. The tax will be calculated based on the amount of power and natural gas you use.
SaskPower
The federal carbon tax is applied to SaskPower's emissions from power-generating sources like coal and natural gas. As set by the federal government, the federal carbon charge on your power bill is retroactive to January 1, 2019.
Customers can expect to see the charge appear on their bills beginning April 1, 2019. Please check your bill for exact amounts. Customers will see a Federal Carbon Charge that reflects the cost to generate power from SaskPower's carbon-emitting sources.
Visit saskpower.com/federalcarbontax.
SaskEnergy
The federal carbon tax will be applied to all fossil fuels sold in Saskatchewan, including natural gas. While using natural gas does create emissions, it is a cleaner form of energy than other fuels, such as coal, oil or propane.
Residential natural gas customers can expect a charge of $0.0391/cubic metre for the first year. The amount collected is determined by the federal government and is part of a multi-year plan with incremental adjustments expected.
Visit saskenergy.com/federalcarbontax.
What is Saskatchewan doing?
Prairie Resilience Climate Change Strategy
Saskatchewan is already implementing its own strategy to address climate change, called Prairie Resilience, which offers unique and innovative Saskatchewan-based solutions. The strategy outlines multiple commitments across five areas designed to make Saskatchewan more resilient to the climatic, economic and policy impacts of climate change.
Government has released several components of the Prairie Resilience strategy since it was released in December 2017. These commitments include a framework to measure and improve the province's resilience, output-based performance standards to regulate industrial emissions intensity reduction, and oil and gas emissions management regulations and a complementary Methane Action Plan.
Together, these will reduce Saskatchewan's greenhouse gas emissions by 12 million tonnes by 2030.
The full strategy and its individual components are available at saskatchewan.ca/climate-change.