July carbon rebates to be deposited, mailed today

The second instalment of this year’s national carbon price rebate will be deposited or mailed out to millions of households today.

The Canada Carbon Rebate returns 90 per cent of the revenue collected by Ottawa from the consumer carbon levy to households in the eight provinces where it is paid.

“It’s meant to accomplish both the encouragement or the incentive to reduce the amount of carbon fuels that you use, and, on the other hand, to offset the affordability problems that might be associated with it,” explained Lori Williams, a political scientist at Mount Royal University in an interview with CityNews.

British Columbia and Quebec have their own separate but equivalent carbon pricing systems and therefore don’t receive the federal rebates.

The rebate is sent out in four instalments over the year and is based on household size and which province you live in, with a family of four receiving between $190 and $450 today.

Provinces where fossil fuels account for a greater share of electricity have higher carbon rebates because those consumers pay more in carbon pricing.

Today is also the final day for small businesses to file their tax returns to qualify for a new automatic refundable tax credit to offset some of their carbon pricing costs.

The new Canada Carbon Rebate for Small Business is Ottawa’s attempt to fix its failed promise to return seven per cent of carbon pricing revenues to smaller businesses in the form of grants to help them invest in energy efficiencies.

Various problems meant only about $35 million was returned through that program, with about $2.5 billion owing for the period between April 1, 2019 to March 31, 2024.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland promised in the last budget to fix that with this new tax credit.

To get a share of the $2.5 billion, businesses need to file their 2023 tax return by today. How much they get will depend on payment rates that have yet to be set by Freeland, and will depend on how many employees an individual company had and which years they were eligible.

The government estimates about 600,000 businesses are eligible for some amount of the money.

Today’s consumer rebate marks the first payment made since Ottawa changed the law to force banks to call the deposits what the federal government demands.

Some big banks and the federal government have been in a standoff for several years as banks failed to use the description Ottawa wanted, leading to confusion when Canadians suddenly saw the payment show up in their bank account.

When the first rebates were issued by direct deposit in 2022, few banks used a name that gave any clue what the money was for. Labels included things like “federal payment” and “EFT Canada.”

Many banks said making the change was too difficult or that they had limited characters to work with.

In the April budget Freeland moved to end the impasse by making a change to the Financial Administration Act that requires banks to abide by the government’s wishes for the label.

Most will now label the deposits today as “CdaCarbonRebate” in English, though some banks have not yet confirmed whether the change will be in place for this month or not.

“I think the government kind of dropped the ball in terms of not naming it correctly in the first place. And to change it around the time when all of these questions are swirling around it again, around the questions of fairness and affordability, I’m not sure it’s going to be enough to offset those negatives,” said Williams.

The bill that made the change law received royal assent on June 20.

-With files from Laura Krause, CityNews