Gas prices are hitting Albertans where it hurts — right in the wallet.
The price per litre for standard gasoline has topped $1.50 in many parts of the province. On Monday morning, the average cost for drivers filling up at Okotoks' pumps was 157.9 per litre.
Today, Premier Jason Kenney made an announcement that he said will provide relief to Albertans amid the rising cost of living.
"It's costing more and more for families to drive their kids to school and to work," he said, citing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, inflation and the Liberal's federal carbon tax as factors in the 10-cent increase to fuel over the last week.
"These prices will drive up the cost of groceries as it costs more and more to get delivery trucks from warehouses to stores," said Kenney. "Just when life is starting to get back to normal, people are worried about how they're going to pay to fill up their gas tank and buy their groceries."
Beginning April 1, Alberta will drop the 13-cent per litre fuel tax applied to prices at the pump, which will apply to gasoline and diesel. Tax on marked gasoline and marked diesel, set at four cents per litre, will also end.
Kenney said the desire was to drop the tax as soon as possible, but that was not feasible, given that fuel retailers have paid for their current stock of fuel with the tax included.
Reinstatement of tax collection will be considered on a quarterly basis based on the average price of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil, but collection will not begin before July 1.
In the future, a sliding-scale approach will be taken using the price of WTI. When the cost of (WTI) oil is more than $90 a barrel, the tax will be removed. If prices go below $80 a barrel, the tax will be reinstated, Kenney said.
The federal government plans to introduce an increase to their carbon tax on April 1, resulting in an increase of three-cents per litre, from nine to just over 11 cents per litre, which the premier called a "big April Fool's Day joke."
"I really don't understand how Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley can possibly think now is the right time to add even more costs to day-to-day living with their punishing carbon tax," Kenney said, adding that his government passed Carbon Repeal Act, which removed the carbon tax introduced by the previous NDP government.
Relief is also planned for Albertans who have been faced with substantially high utility costs this winter.
The province will provide $150 in rebates to Albertans in the coming months, as long as they used less than 250 megawatt hours in a month.
More than one million homes, farms and businesses are expected to qualify, according to the province.
One megawatt hour equates to 1,000 kilowatt hours, which are typically the units measuring usage on one's bill.
The rebates are expected to be applied retroactively to energy bills at $50 per month for January, February and March in partnership with more than 45 energy providers in the province.
