[Dion]

Alberta businesses fret as province-wide carbon tax nears

Foisy runs a small greenhouse near Morinville. Rosenau has a large trucking business with 750 employees and operations across Western Canada.

Like many Alberta entrepreneurs, a common thread draws them together today: questions and concerns about the incoming provincial carbon tax.

Just days before the new $20-a-tonne carbon tax kicks in across the province, they’re trying to figure out how the levy will affect their companies, customers and employees.

“It’s going to increase our heat bill by 30 to 50 per cent,” says Foisy, who’s also president of the Alberta Greenhouse Growers Association.

“We just can’t add that cost on. Who’s going to pay?”

For greenhouse operators, the changes will be significant.

About one-quarter of their operating costs are tied to heating and cooling expenses, as greenhouses use a lot of natural gas.

The association, which represents 138 growers that employ more than 4,000 full- and part-time workers, expects the carbon tax will increase industry costs by about $5 million next year.

Greenhouse operators are still hoping for some type of rebate to match those available to competitors in neighbouring British Columbia, which already has a carbon tax.

Foisy isn’t certain how much her operating expenses will rise — her company, Debs Greenhouse, moved into a new greenhouse this year — but she anticipates cutting her labour costs in response, not hiring three full-time positions.

At Rosenau Transport Ltd., the business runs 450 trucks and 1,400 trailers across the western provinces.

President Carl Rosenau has a pretty good idea of the additional fuel expenses tied to the levy — about $600,000 next year — but the business also operates more than one million square feet of warehouse space that requires power and heat.

“We are just going to pass it on,” says Rosenau, past chairman of the Alberta Motor Transport Association.

“I can’t absorb that, and so it’s going to affect the price of your lettuce to your bread to everything that consumers purchase, because all carriers are doing it.”

Rosenau is unsure how the business will deal with freight being transported from Saskatchewan, which has no carbon tax, into Alberta and B.C. He’ll likely have to pro-rate the extra charges.

http://calgaryherald.com/business/lo...rbon-tax-nears