Pumped up: Alberta gas tax slated to return in January

Next month's holiday season will likely mark the end of another type of holiday for Alberta motorists.

Premier Danielle Smith says if the price of oil stays where it is, the provincial gas tax will return in January.

Fuel stations haven't applied the full 13-cents-per-litre charge to gasoline, diesel and propane since April 2022, when Smith's predecessor, Jason Kenney, paused the fuel tax as an affordability measure. Smith's government has kept the tax off pump prices entirely for all of 2023, with the warning that lower oil prices would mean it's phased back in after Dec. 31.

"In the new year, if these prices continue to be moderate like this, we will be bringing the fuel tax back, yes," the premier said last weekend on her regular radio call-in show.

According to the UCP government, the gas tax will be brought back on a sliding scale once the West Texas Intermediate oil benchmark price falls below $90 US per barrel. If it's below $80, the provincial fuel tax returns totally at 13 cents per litre.

It's been beneath $80 for most of November, and was sitting around $76.25 US per barrel at midday Thursday.

Smith also told her radio listeners that Alberta residents would still be paying Canada's lowest fuel rates, even if the provincial tax returns. According to gasbuddy.com, the latest average gasoline price in Alberta of about $1.31 per litre is 13 cents below that of Saskatchewan, the second-cheapest market, and a whole 40 cents below the average in British Columbia.

Albertans also benefit from having no provincial sales tax on gasoline. But Alberta pump prices do include a 10-cent-per-litre federal fuel tax, the five per cent GST and 14.31 cents for the federal carbon tax, which Smith and other conservative leaders have long fought against.