The federal carbon tax has pulled nearly $30 million out of Saskatchewan’s education sector since its implementation in 2019, with Prairie South School Division forced to fork over almost $2 million.
Board trustees discussed the carbon tax’s effect on the school division during a review of the organization’s first quarter finances — Sept. 1 to Nov. 30, 2023 — at their Jan. 9 meeting.
Ron Purdy, finance superintendent, said the physical plant expenses would depend on how PSSD’s preventative maintenance and renewal (PMR) school projects and everyday maintenance initiatives do this year.
Meanwhile, if winter continued to be mild — aside from the forthcoming cold spell — the division could see “fairly significant savings” of $350,000 on heat, electricity and carbon tax expenses, he stated.
While those savings would be positive, Purdy noted that Ottawa has failed to provide $975,000 in carbon tax rebates since 2021 as it promised to do. The division office estimates that the federal government will owe the organization about $500,000 this year, for an outstanding total of $1.47 million.
Prairie South is not alone in failing to receive carbon tax rebates because, among the 27 provincial school divisions, the total amount taken from them is roughly $26 million, he added.
Trustee Patrick Boyle expressed frustration that Ottawa had taken nearly $1.5 million from PSSD via the carbon tax and not returned that through rebates. Moreover, he was concerned about the negative effect this was having on the organization’s operational abilities.
“There’s no rebate here. Those rebate cheques are given to individuals, so you have a gap in funding,” he said. “And then you extrapolate that across the province and you’re pushing $25 (million) to almost $30 million in the education section that’s been taken out … .”
The loss of that money means divisions are unable to add teachers or educational assistants or address classroom complexity, he pointed out. The education sector “is literally being robbed by the federal government.”
Boyle warned his colleagues not to underestimate the effect of not paying the carbon tax because it would compound annually and eventually quadruple. That would create a hole in the division’s budget that would grow over time. However, the provincial government’s refusal to collect the carbon tax this year means Prairie South could save $350,000.
Meanwhile, this program forces divisions to spend more money on green-focused capital upgrades, which hampers their ability even to access those already-taxed funds that belong to them, he said.
“The last time I checked, there’s not a lot of great electronic buses out there that can run in minus-40 (Celsius weather) around the Coronach very well for hours at a time … ,” Boyle stated, adding it will take a provincial grassroots push to address this problem.
When asked what the process was to receive remittances, Purdy said the federal government usually sent an application that PSSD filled in and returned. However, the division hasn’t received one since 2020.
If the division acquired that outstanding funding, though, it would have to spend that money on energy-efficient upgrades in its buildings, he added.
Trustee Crystal Froese jokingly asked if there was a 1-800 number the division could call to receive that money. She then thought the division should follow up with Ottawa — or even the Ministry of Education — about the application form since $1.5 million was a significant amount of money to leave on the table.
Trustee Robert Bachmann, who sits on a provincial committee, said the education sector has been attempting for years to gain clarity on the carbon tax. A committee had been helping school divisions determine how best to spend their rebates before the federal government “arbitrarily cancelled that.”
“(The committee) continued to advocate for something to take its place or any type of communication. And it’s not been forthcoming,” he added. “(But) there certainly is an effort to solicit a response.”
The next PSSD meeting is Tuesday, Feb. 6.
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