Premier Danielle Smith advised Albertans not to expect any tax breaks at the pumps to help ease the pain of filling up their vehicles any time soon.
On her Saturday radio program Your Province, Your Premier, Smith explained to a caller that the high price at the pump, which is hovering around $1.60 a litre, was largely out of her control.
The U.S.-Iran war is forcing oil prices higher, which is driving up the price of a litre of gas in Alberta and Smith said that while she sympathizes with drivers, there are more effective ways to put a few bucks in consumer pockets.
“The issue we have -- and (the) reason we have the Fuel Tax Relief Program – it’s that if we’re making a large amount of revenue on (oil) royalties, then we don’t want to double up the cost on consumers by also having a high fuel tax," Smith said.
I would just put it in the context (of) we’ve had these high prices for three weeks,“ she said. ”The amount that we can do to mitigate on the cost of fuel is 13 cents a litre. So if you have a 55-gallon tank, the most we can do to help you on a fill up is $7.15 if we went down to zero (provincial fuel tax),” she said.
The fuel tax relief program is supposed to apply when the price of West Texas Intermediate averages above $90 a barrel. That average is determining by looking at the 20 trading days leading up to the 16th day of the month preceding the start of the next quarter, according to the province.
The next quarter starts April 1.
However, Smith cautioned that after running a deficit close to $10 billion in the 2025-26 fiscal year, with a projected price of $61 a barrel this year, the province needs to count its pennies too -- and removing the tax wouldn’t make much of a dent in the cost of a tank of gas for consumers.
“We could take that off but you’ll still be facing the high prices at the pump because the world prices are just out of our control,” she said.
She pointed to other areas where the province is saving consumers money, such as the removal of the federal carbon tax which has brought down the price of electricity, home heating and pump prices.
“I want to make sure we’re doing something that’s going to be meaningful and that we’re not acting in a way that’s premature before more dollars come in, because we still have a significant deficit from last year,” she said.
“I don’t know how quickly this conflict is going to go on --- but if it turns out we have higher revenues along with (higher) gas tax revenues, we’ll see if we can take a look at some programs to help those who are really facing the pinch from an affordability point of view.”
She also addressed concerns about price gouging by gas stations, saying she doubts that’s happening but said she would ask Service Alberta minister Dale Nally to keep an eye on the situation.
