Liberals take heat from PC opposition for carbon adjustor promise | CBC News

The Holt government faced criticism Wednesday from opposition politicians for making a campaign election promise that is now proving too complicated to keep.

The Liberal government tried to argue that the decision to put off repealing the “cost of carbon adjustor” — which adds four cents per litre to the price of gas — showed they were willing to heed the views of New Brunswickers.

“We are listening and trying to find a path forward that respects the urgency that New Brunswickers want to see on affordability and also respects the opposition and the points that are being brought forward,” Premier Susan Holt said during question period.

“We’re trying to find the balance here.” 

But Progressive Conservative Leader Glen Savoie said the Liberals should have thought about those points before they made the promise during the election.

“This is not an example of government listening,” he said during question period. “This is an example of a government making a promise without knowing or understanding the ramifications of it, and then saying ‘Oops, now we have to change course.’

“Stand up in the house, say ‘We were wrong as government, we shouldn’t have promised you affordability that we couldn’t deliver on and now we’re going to have to switch lanes.'”

The carbon adjustor was adopted by the previous PC government of Blaine Higgs in 2022 to allow gas producers to pass on the cost of federal clean fuel regulations to consumers buying gas.

Eliminating it was one of Holt’s signature promises during the election to make life more affordable for New Brunswickers.

But when the Liberals introduced the bill last month, Savoie warned that eliminating the adjustor could leave small independent gas station owners absorbing the carbon cost — and perhaps force some of them out of business.

Energy Minister René Legacy said in the legislature Wednesday that “we haven’t had a debate over those small retailers” until recently because the previous PC government was focused on complaining about the federal carbon tax.

WATCH | ‘They didn’t know what they were doing’: Liberals, PCs debate promise:

In fact, his PC predecessor Mike Holland argued repeatedly from the moment he introduced the adjustor legislation in November 2022 that it was designed to protect “mom and pop shops, small convenience stores with a gas pump out front” from shutting down.

Legacy told reporters he had heard Holland make that argument, but it wasn’t “intensified” the way it was by industry groups who have made the same case to the Liberals in the last few weeks.

Now, he said, the government realized that the repeal could “create chaos” for gas retailers.

The Liberals voted late Tuesday to interrupt debate on the bill and refer it to the legislature’s law amendments committee for public hearings next year, despite their campaign promise to repeal the adjustor “immediately.”

The original plan was to pass the bill by this Friday so the four cents per litre could be removed before the end of 2024.

Legacy explained the backtracking by arguing that the Liberals are a government “that moves very fast, and coming with that is an ability to shift, and listen, and adjust.”

Carol Montreuil, vice-president of the Canadian Fuels Association, said Wednesday he was pleased that both the Liberals and PCs were showing “a lot of wisdom and prudence” in sending the adjustor repeal bill to the committee for more discussion.

“These [federal clean fuel] costs are real and like in other Canadian provinces, should be included in prices at the pump,” he said.

Green leader David Coon said the Energy and Utilities Board has other mechanisms to pass the cost onto consumers, but using them would involve producers like Irving Oil having to make a public case for them and provide data to back it up.

The Liberals announced Wednesday that another promised affordability measure will be in effect next month, earlier than they’d committed to during the election.

A rebate automatically removing the 10 per cent provincial sales tax from home electricity bills will take effect Jan. 1, Legacy said in the legislature.

But that didn’t distract the PCs from underscoring the Liberal reversal on the carbon adjustor.

“They said they would do this immediately and they haven’t,” Savoie told reporters.

“I’m not disagreeing with the government abandoning their promise. I’m just giving them a hard time because they made the promise to begin with, when they didn’t know what they were doing.”

Legacy said the law amendments committee’s review of the bill would also look at an idea floated by Holt to repeal gas price regulation altogether.

That would leave gas producers free to pass on the cost of the federal clean fuel regulations to consumers without it being visible.