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Orangeville lobbies feds for carbon tax fairness

March 22, 2024   ·   0 Comments

By JAMES MATTHEWS, LOCAL JOURNALISM INITIATIVE REPORTER

Orangeville Mayor Lisa Post is rallying council support to lobby the federal government for fairness in how it calculates carbon tax rebates for small communities.

Post made a notice of motion during Orangeville’s March 18 council meeting that asks council to get behind an effort to ask Ottawa to change eligibility criteria for Canada Carbon Rebate (CCR) supplements to include small and rural communities. Those communities include Orangeville, Mono, and other smaller municipalities, regardless of whether they fall within the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA).

Mono Mayor John Creelman brought the issue to Orangeville council’s attention, said Mayor Post.

“The way that the carbon tax additional rebate for rural and small municipalities is being calculated excludes both Mono and the Town Orangeville because of the type of measurement for eligibility that they are using,” she said.

And, quite simply, that isn’t fair.

The federal government offers a quarterly basic CCR of $140 plus additional amounts for spouses, common-law partners, and children.

A rural supplement of 10 per cent of the basic CCR, which is soon to be 20 per cent, is available to individuals and families if they qualify.

Eligibility for the rural supplement for residents of small and rural communities is arbitrary and based on whether one lives inside or outside a CMA.

And therein lies the rub for Dufferin County municipalities.

Orangeville is a small community but it falls within the Toronto CMA, which makes residents ineligible for the small and rural supplement.

Post said CMAs were designed for purposes other than determining eligibility for government rebates.

“Residents of Orangeville and other small communities face such things as significant carbon tax charges for commuting long distances for employment due to a lack of viable commuter transit options and competitively priced heating fuel options,” she said.

Post said she also intends to write a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“This isn’t just a problem within Ontario,” she said. “This is happening across the country.”

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