this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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While not representing a majority of Canadians, there are people living in regions that get regularly cold enough for heat pumps to be inadequate. Which means running a standard electric furnace (expensive and inefficient) during the coldest months of the year. Which... is not ideal, especially for lower-income rural persons. (IE, most people living in these regions of Canada.)
The rebate is great, but there are persons for whom it is insufficient.
Do I think that's a good reason to remove the carbon tax from heating fuels? No, not really. (Assuming I understand how the tax works, it really isn't the burden people expect it to be. (You can debate about inefficiencies, but as far as manipulating economics to incentivize transfer away from fossil fuels without harming the general public, it's reasonably sound.)) But people do have legitimate concerns that shouldn't be trivially dismissed.
Rural and remote residents already get a slightly larger rebate, and as a city dweller, I think their share should be higher for exactly the reason you state. Also, keep in mind that at night time, which will typically be the only time people end up using resistive heat while on a heat pump, electricity is cheaper. Ontario's ultra-low off-peak option is even more extreme. It's probably cheaper to run resistive heat at night, than running the heat pump during peak times.
Saskatchewan does not have "off-peak" electricity pricing because Saskatchewan runs our power grid on old Coal plants. So not only does it get cold enough for heat pumps to not be sufficient here (even during the day sometimes), our electricity is not a green option either. Natural gas heating makes more sense here in Saskatchewan and it pains me to say that. Until such time as we get a green grid (get rid of the coal), natural gas heating is the best option for us.
Edit to add: I will gladly continue to pay the carbon tax because of 2 things: 1. I get more back on the rebate than I spend (my provincial premier is full of it) and 2. If some of that money from the tax goes to green initiatives, then I gladly support that.
Comparing the federal energy mix for Saskatchewan in 2019, to SaskPower's claims for 2023, we're going in the right direction with respect to coal. I don't expect Moe's SaskParty to do much better than that, unfortunately. Hopefully nuclear and wind take off more, or we're more willing to import hydro from Manitoba, even at a higher cost.
Though reading that closer, SaskPower's claims for hydro include imports (it's unspecified from where, but the only place that makes sense is Manitoba), while the federal paper is only generating capacity, no imports. I wonder what the mix including imports was in 2019.