Wildrose Party Leader Brian Jean is telling anyone who will listen, the NDP's Carbon Tax is a bad move for Alberta.

Jean, in High River as part of Highwood MLA Wayne Anderson's golf tournament Thursday says rural Albertans are going to be hit particularly hard.

"I look at this as a tax that's going to significantly hurt the people in rural Alberta. But it's going to hurt all Albertans. It's going to hurt Albertans taking their product to market from rural Alberta to urban Alberta. It certainly is going to impact rural Alberta more significantly because of the distance we have to travel than it will for urban Alberta."

Jean says if his party is elected to government one of his first moves would be to eliminate the carbon tax.

The Wildrose also issued a news release Thursday showing just how much extra money will head to Ottawa when the new carbon tax comes in, as a result of the carbon tax being added to the existing GST.

The federal sales tax, or the GST, charges 5 per cent on the total price every time an Albertan fills up at the pump. With gasoline and diesel fuel set to spike 6.73 and 8.03 cents per litre under the carbon tax, the amount of GST sent by Albertans to Ottawa will automatically increase.
 
 For example, according to Statistics Canada, Albertans purchased 6.4 billion litres of gasoline in 2014. When the GST is applied to the full carbon tax increase, that means an additional $21 million going from Alberta to Ottawa just from the carbon tax increase on gasoline.

Add another $17 million for diesel fuel.

Gasoline and diesel are only two of the 25 fuels that the carbon tax will apply to. Wildrose Leader Brian Jean called on Premier Rachel Notley to calculate the total amount of new tax dollars that will be sent to Ottawa through the new carbon tax.
 
“Over 44,000 full-time jobs were lost in Alberta last month, but the NDP government is doubling down on a new carbon tax that is just making things worse,” Wildrose Leader Brian Jean said. “This tax will not only take $1,000 per year out of the pocketbooks of working families, but will send more money to Ottawa instead of keeping it here in Alberta.”

Wildrose Shadow Finance Minister Derek Fildebrandt said this is just another reason why a growing majority of Albertans do not support this carbon tax.  

 "This is a tax on tax that will only send more money to Ottawa without significant return," Fildebrandt said. “Taxing tax is wrong as a principle, but doing so and sending it to Ottawa without any strings attached is inexcusable.”

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