Certainly, back in 2017 the business council hosted a forum with many stakeholders: government, academics, the business community and environmental organizations. Our key focus there was in particular addressing the competitiveness issue.
From a business council perspective, we are certainly in support of the need for regulation to address climate change across Canada. However, the federal backstop has been applied in New Brunswick because in the change of government, what was brought forward by the previous government in New Brunswick was not accepted. As a result, New Brunswick defaulted to the federal backstop.
In this case, the position of the business council is that we would strongly urge the Government of Canada to allow New Brunswick to once again have an opportunity much like the other provinces in Atlantic Canada had. Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and P.E.I. were able to negotiate their own pricing mechanisms around carbon and climate change and the transition.
In New Brunswick, because the plan that was brought forward by the previous government was not accepted, it's put us into a federal backstop. We would certainly advocate for New Brunswick to have another opportunity, sooner rather than later, to bring forward an alternative plan for New Brunswick.
At this point, a carbon tax for fuel would be about a 5.5-cent increase for every litre, whereas in the other provinces it would be roughly 1 to 1.3 cents. Even within Atlantic Canada, that puts New Brunswick in the position of being uncompetitive with its neighbouring provinces.