Feds owes Sask. small businesses $7,000 each: CFIB

March 11, 2024, 10:33 am
Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Operating a small business in these volatile economic times is stressful enough, but knowing there’s money owed to you just sitting in a big pile can be infuriating. The Canadian Federation of Independent Business recently released figures showing that Saskatchewan small businesses are owed the highest amount in carbon tax rebate cheques across the nation, with each of the 43,007 small businesses in the province owed $6,990.

“We’re still waiting for the rebates, and it’s quite unfair for a lot of the small businesses that have been patiently waiting, because the federal government recently announced that they’re going to be cutting the allocated nine per cent of rebates to five per cent starting this year, for small businesses,” said SeoRhin Yoo, a policy analyst with the CFIB. “For Saskatchewan small businesses, fuel and energy costs has been one of their biggest cost challenges since 2021. It would have been really great for them to see this money, just to help with everything else as well. For a lot of small businesses, it could be money that’s used to help pay their employees, it could be money that’s used to invest in new equipment, that’s more energy efficient. But we’re just not seeing that.”

According to figures from the CFIB, small and medium-sized businesses in this province should be receiving around $300 million of the $2.5 billion national total, or a one-time payout of just under $7,000.

“That’s a big chunk of money that small business owners could really use right now. It’s deeply unfair that five years into the program, Ottawa is still sitting on over $2.5 billion it owes to small firms,” said CFIB president Dan Kelly. “Enough is enough. The government must act now and return the promised carbon tax revenues to all small businesses in the eight provinces under the federal backstop.”

An independent third party was supposed to be in place to oversee the distribution of funds, but that has not happened.

“They did set their deadline to redistribute these funds for 2025, but I mean, with how the rollouts have been panning out these last couple of years, we’re not too sure if we can hold them to that,” Yoo said.

In the meantime, the CFIB continues with their unchanging requests.

“We’re currently calling on the federal government to immediately return the $2.5 billion that’s owed to all the small businesses. We’re also calling them to scrap the idea to reduce the small business share of the carbon tax revenue from nine per cent to five per cent, and to rebate these rebates annually. We also are calling on them to freeze the carbon tax rate at it’s current level, because it’s going up to $80 a tonne next month in April,” explained Yoo. “We’re asking the federal government to give small businesses the relief that they desperately deserve and if you’re a business owner, you can also go on to cfib.ca and sign our petition that we have out.”

At press time, calls to the federal ministers of Environment, Small Business and even the Prime Minister’s office went unanswered. However, the provincial government was more than happy to share their thoughts.

“We agree that it’s unacceptable that over the last five years, the federal government has sat on this money and they haven’t come up with a mechanism to distribute it back to Saskatchewan small businesses,” said Crown corporations minister Dustin Duncan. “It’s completely unacceptable, and just one more example of how this carbon tax is not good for Saskatchewan. It’s not good for Saskatchewan residents or businesses and it’s why we continue to call on the federal government to scrap the carbon tax for everyone on everything.”

Duncan noted the province is also joining the chorus of voices expressing concern over the rebate money.

“Our understanding is that for Saskatchewan small businesses, this is about $300 million of carbon tax money that the federal government is sitting on,” he said. “So our finance minister’s working with the CFIB and she’s going to be putting forward a request to minister [Chrystia] Freeland for the money to be distributed in a fair and equitable way to Saskatchewan small businesses.”

Saskatchewan residents overall could see their carbon tax rebates carved, due in part to the provincial government’s decision to remove the tax from natural gas heating bills. Federal government figures note a family of four in Saskatchewan could expect $1,800 in rebates this year, and the provincial government’s removal of the tax on heating was projected to save the average household $400 annually.

“The Federal Minister of Energy, when we first made our announcement, he said that the federal government was going to scrap the entire rebate for Saskatchewan residents, which if they did that, once again, we’d be on an un-level playing field, considering the treatment of the carbon tax and the rebates to Atlantic Canadians,” Duncan said.

“In Atlantic Canada, they allowed for a three year reduction or a three year elimination of the carbon tax on heating oil, which disproportionately benefits people in Atlantic Canada. And at the same time, they did make a corresponding reduction in in the in the rebate.”

No official word on when or if Saskatchewan rebate cheques has come to fruition yet, with Duncan pointing to a game of ‘wait and see.’

“We’re waiting to see how the federal government is going to respond to that, whether or not they are going to - as the Minister initially said - completely eliminate the rebate, which certainly we would have a very big problem with, or if there’s going to be a corresponding reduction in the rebate based on the amount of the carbon tax that we’re not submitting to the federal government,” he said.