Stephane Dion wants you to pay $266 more a year to heat your home with natural gas. He also thinks that truckers should pay at least $1,700 per year more to fuel up their trucks. These two examples are not my own. The Liberals themselves give out these examples when explaining the cost of their carbon tax. Considering that the Liberals will inevitably downplay the size of their tax grab, these numbers should be taken as minimums.

But it is not only truckers and homeowners who will be hit directly by the imposition of a carbon tax. The cost of groceries and practically everything else will go up even more as the added cost of the Liberals’ new tax is passed along to consumers.

Since natural gas is a key ingredient in making nitrogen-based fertilizers, the high price of fertilizer will continue to climb because of the carbon tax. Electricity rates in Saskatchewan will also rise, since we use coal to run our power plants. As a result, small business, manufacturers and other employers in our province will be faced with rising costs. If you run a bakery or a machine shop, you will have the option of raising your prices or digging into your own pocket to pay for the new carbon tax.

A carbon tax is a tax on transportation, heating, and practically everything that uses electricity. These items may be viewed as luxuries by Stephane Dion and his friends in Montreal and Toronto. But in Saskatchewan, most people view getting to work, heating their homes and buying groceries as necessities. A carbon tax is a really bad idea.