BREAKING: Moe declares “Saskatchewan is now a carbon tax free province”

Brian Zinchuk

Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online

So long, industrial carbon tax

REGINA – Hardly able to contain his glee, Premier Scott Moe released a video across various social media platforms late Wednesday, declaring, “Saskatchewan is now a carbon tax free province.”

A press conference is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Thursday, March 27, but it appears the announcement was just too big to hold back.

While he didn’t break into song, with a broad smile across his face, Moe announced the province would be removing the industrial version of the federal carbon tax, know as the Output-Based Pricing System. It is a provincial implementation that collects hundreds of millions of dollars per year, put in place because of the federal backstop requiring such a carbon tax if a province does not implement its own.

Here’s how it’s described on the federal government webpage: “The federal OBPS is designed to ensure there is a price incentive for industrial emitters to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and spur innovation while maintaining competitiveness and protecting against “carbon leakage” (i.e. the risk of industrial facilities moving from one region to another to avoid paying a price on carbon pollution).”

And as changes to the federal carbon tax are implemented with the new federal fiscal year on April 1, the timing of the announcement is likely linked to that date.

Here’s the transcript of Moe’s video, just over a minute long.:

Saskatchewan is now a carbon tax free province, the first carbon tax free province in Canada.

Now that the two major federal parties and their leaders have announced their plans for removing the carbon tax, Saskatchewan is taking the next step by reducing the industrial carbon tax rate charged in our province to zero, to give our consumers a break, to make our industries more competitive in this new tariff environment.

So what does this mean for you? Well, the immediate effect is the removal of the carbon tax on your SaskPower bills, saving Saskatchewan families and small businesses hundreds of dollars a year, And in the longer term, it will reduce the cost of other consumer products that have the industrial Carbon Tax built right into their price.

Saskatchewan is producing some of the most sustainable products in the world today. We want to create the environment to produce more of those sustainable products, to make our industries more competitive in the face of US and Chinese tariffs, and to protect and create Canadian jobs right here in Saskatchewan

Making Saskatchewan a carbon tax free Province will do just that. And I would hope that all of the parties running in the federal election would agree with those objectives, and allow the provinces to regulate in this area without imposing the federal backstop.

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Saskatchewan was the lead province in taking the federal government to court to combat the implementation of the federal carbon tax. Ultimately it and the other provinces who joined in lost at the Supreme Court of Canada. Combatting the carbon tax has been a key initiative of the Saskatchewan Party government ever since its implementation. And it’s a battle Moe personally has been fighting since his time as Minister of the Environment, prior to his elevation to premier.

One of the largest impacts of the industrial carbon tax is on the usage of coal-fired power generation. Without the Output-Based Pricing System, coal fired-power generation become a lot more competitive.

This is a breaking story and more details are expected to be released on Thursday.

• 0091 WBPC_2025_30_SEC_PROMO_RANJITH
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• 0089 WBPC_2025_30_SEC_PROMO_ERIK
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• 0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan Teaser
  0046 City of Estevan This is Estevan Teaser
• 0088 WBPC_2025_30SEC_PROMO
  0088 WBPC_2025_30SEC_PROMO
• 0087 Lori Carr Coal Expansion
  0087 Lori Carr Coal Expansion
• 0086 Sask Gov Oil and Gas Incentive Programs
  0086 Sask Gov Oil and Gas Incentive Programs
• 0085 Turnbull snow removal call office
  0085 Turnbull snow removal call office
• 0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
  0084 EMP Metals Pipeline Online
• 0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
  0077 Caprice Resources Stand Up For Free Speech
• 0076 Latus only
  0076 Latus only
• 0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
  0061 SIMSA 2024 For Sask Buy Sask
• 0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
  0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
• 0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
  0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
• 0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
  0049 Scotsburn Dental soft guitar
• 0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
  0041 DEEP Since 2018 now we are going to build
• 0032 IWS Summer hiring rock trailer music
• 0022 Grimes winter hiring
• 0021 OSY Rentals S8 Promo
• 0018 IWS Hiring Royal Summer
• 0013 Panther Drilling PO ad 03 top drive rigs
• 0011
• 0006 JK Junior
• 0002 gilliss casing services
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• 9002 Pipeline Online 30 sec EBEX
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