For Immediate Release
18 October, 2023
NDP Leader, Jim Dinn (St. John’s Centre), is calling on government to address the cost of living crisis by putting programs in place to help people, like removing the HST off of home heating, until there are alternative heat sources available to them. The call comes after a Private Members Resolution was debated in the House of Assembly calling on the Provincial Government to lobby Ottawa to remove the carbon tax.
“People in this province are working multiple jobs working a poverty wage to pay rent. When we should be calling on Ottawa to remove the HST off of home heating before the temperature gets colder, the Liberals and Conservatives are grandstanding over the carbon tax,” said Dinn. “This Private Members Resolution ignores the fact that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians receive significantly more through Climate Action Incentive Payments (CAIP) under the current federal plan than they did with the made in NL plan.”
Dinn points to the increasing frequency extreme weather events hitting the province, and the world, as greater motivation for governments to act.
“People in Port-aux-Basques are not in their permanent homes, more frequent bigger and hotter forest fires are happening across the country, and crops are failing around the world. We cannot continue to behave like we’re in a vacuum on this planet and say the cost was too much to bare,” said Dinn. “At the end of the day, long after I’m gone and future generations are experiencing the reality of the world they’re living in, whatever that may look like, I’ll rest easy because when I had the opportunity, I put their future first.”
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For further information, contact Eddy St. Coeur, Director of Communications, NDP Caucus at 729-2137 (o), or eddystcoeur@gov.nl.ca