The clean fuel regulations and the carbon tax increase are scheduled to come into effect on July 1.
In Nova Scotia, refinery margins — the difference between the selling price and the cost to make a product — increased from 10.7 cents per litre to 48.3 cents per litre between 2019 and 2022, Guilbeault wrote, The clean fuel regulations require gasoline and diesel suppliers to reduce greenhouse gas pollution from the fuels they produce to 15 per cent below 2016 levels by 2030.The regulations allow suppliers to earn credits for reducing the "carbon intensity" of their operations through actions like carbon capture and storage, on-site renewable electricity, producing low carbon ethanol and biodiesel or supplying fuel or energy to advanced vehicle technology.
"Seeking immediate consumer price increases to account for estimated costs under a worst-case scenario projection could lead to a scenario where a company later chooses a lower-cost option, pockets the increased revenue from consumers, and adds it to already elevated refinery margins," Guilbeault wrote.
Environment Canada has challenged those numbers, saying they do not take into account the costs of climate change.