Cochrane area resident Jeff Beamish has sat down and crunched all the numbers, and he figures he knows what the recently instituted federal carbon tax will cost him when the tax goes even higher next year: $1,215.
Beamish’s circumstances might be different from yours but he thinks middle income earners will be in the same ball park.
“This $1,215 is just my basic usage,” he says, referring to increase in various fuels. “Then you add on the food, the clothing to bring it up here to the north and anything else, like snowmobiling not included, which is a big staple of people up here, hunting, getting to spots, boating, you name it.”
The Liberal government is promising $307 income tax credit. Beamish says it will look great at first to low-income earners who don’t have the same cost for gasoline and heating fuel as those in a higher bracket.
“But where that $307 is going to come in handy to them,” he says,” is when the landlord has to increase their rent bill by 30 to 40 to 50 dollars a month. That $307 will be eaten up, but initially it’ll look great to them.”
Again, these are all Jeff Beamish’s calculations. Yours could be different due to different circumstances and other variables.
Beamish is retired from the military and real estate, and lives with his wife and three kids on acreage about ten minutes outside of Cochrane.