Your SaskPower bills will be going up in the New Year.
Effective January 1st, the federal carbon tax that’s applied to SaskPower’s fossil fuel emissions will be going from $20 to $30 per tonne.
SaskPower’s Joel Cherry said this will reflect an increase in cost to customers. “Overall we are estimating that the cost for residential customers will be the equivalent of a 1.5 percent rate increase, so about $22 per year. For farm customers, they can expect to spend an additional $60 in 2020.”
The specific amount charged per customer will vary depending on power consumption.
“While SaskPower has not increased rates in 2019, the Federal Carbon Tax means all SaskPower customers will pay more each month,” said the Honourable Dustin Duncan, Minister Responsible for SaskPower in a release. “Saskatchewan’s Prairie Resilience climate change strategy establishes concrete steps toward meaningful greenhouse gas emissions reductions without the need for this harmful tax.”
Cherry said the yearly costs will be continuously going up over the next few years. “The federal government has scheduled the cost to increase until it’s $50 per tonne in 2022. You can expect the cost, pending the Supreme Court challenge, to continue to rise in the coming years.”
He added that is Saskatchewan wins the challenge on the carbon tax, all the money that has been collected on through the tax will be returned to the customers. “We haven’t sent it through to the federal government yet, we’re not required to do so until later in 2020. If the provincial government is successful in challenging the carbon tax in the Supreme Court, we will refund the tax collected to customers.”
More information on how the carbon tax will effect your SaskPower bill can be found here.
