Utilities = Hidden Taxes

Some of West Van residents will soon be getting an unpleasant surprise in the mail – in the form of utility statements.

Have you noticed how utilities (Fortis especially) seem to lump significant increases to little fanfare or complaint from the general public or press?

One of our members (Graham McIsaac) dug a little deeper this time and you can see his figures in this chart – and his commentary below.

For last month our bill was $149.26.

Taxes ( Carbon Tax $23.74, Clean Energy Levy $0.47 and GST $7.09) for a total of $31.30 were 21% of total bill!!

The cost of gas was $39.59 or 26% of total bill!!

The remaining $78.37 is for Delivery, Storage and Transport totalling 53% of total bill.

Taxes make up  21% of the total bill and 79%  of the actual gas consumed!! Seems ridiculous that taxes are actually higher than the cost of the gas itself- the Carbon Tax itself is of 16% of the total bill. This is obscene and does not help make life more affordable for “ the middle class and those aspiring to join it” as JT tells us he is trying to do.

The taxes including the Carbon Tax just go into general government revenues- surely the Carbon Tax itself should be exclusively used to make our infrastructure more resilient.

It seems that we as Canadians are paying carbon taxes as a penance for our GHG’s and in doing so are actually making no difference to the amount of GHG’s we burn. BC has had a Carbon Tax for years and it’s GHG’s have continued to increase like every other province that had no Carbon Taxes.

Also take a peek at the blog in the ‘Posts’ panel – a conversation with Fortis earlier this year.