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DAVID SHIPLEY
Telegraph-Journal

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MONCTON - Despite last-minute changes, the federal Liberal Party's proposed Green Shift carbon tax could cost the Greater Moncton area thousands of jobs in the transportation sector and related industries, says the head of a regional trucking association.

"Just in Moncton alone, the carbon tax puts 10,000 jobs in the transportation sector in jeopardy. For Atlantic Canada, we're looking at a 100,000 jobs in the transportation sector, that's all modes of transportation, in jeopardy," said Peter Nelson, executive director of the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association.

Nelson said the 10,000 jobs stem from direct employment in the trucking business, other transportation industries as well as indirect employment such as mechanics, vehicle sales representatives and administrative support.

"What is probably the most annoying thing about all this is, you've got 10,000 jobs in jeopardy in the Greater Moncton area and the local Liberal MPs refuse to recognize that," said Nelson.

Canadians go to the polls Oct. 14.

The Green Shift, an environmental and economic policy strongly backed by federal Liberal leader Stéphane Dion, is a key policy plank for the Grits.

But the plan has faced intense criticism from farmers, truckers and others. Prime Minister Harper has called the plan "crazy" given the current downturn in the economy.

Moncton, known as the transportation hub of the Maritimes, would be particularly hard-hit by any regime that increases fuel costs for firms that transport goods by road, rail or air.

Under pressure from rural and Atlantic MPs, Dion signalled a change in the Green Shift policy earlier this week to provide $900 million in tax breaks to farmers, fishermen and truckers.

"What the Liberals seem to be offering is an olive branch to agriculture and to road transportation, but it's weak at best," Nelson said.

The proposed $250-million national fund for fisheries and transportation firms to help deal with the impact of the proposed carbon tax would do little, if anything, for the trucking industry in Atlantic Canada, he said.

Nelson noted that the national trucking industry consumes more than seven billion litres of diesel fuel per year and pays in excess of $280 million in federal excise taxes on that fuel.

"If you look at the Green Shift plan to add a new carbon tax, to add another seven cents per litre to the cost of diesel fuel, that means the trucking industry would pay an additional $500 million per year," he said. "This $250 million over four years to supposedly help those of us who are impacted by the carbon tax, it's a drop in the bucket. It's still going to cost the industry."

Nelson said Moncton's Liberal MP, Brian Murphy, should be speaking out against the proposed carbon tax.

Murphy defended the Green Shift during an interview Friday and said the changes announced by Dion would "partly" deal with concerns raised about the plan.

"I think it was a very good sign that our leader was listening to some of the concerns that came from some of the consultations he had, including those with Peter Nelson, across the country this summer," he said.

"We're all going to have to pay a price for carbon," Murphy said. "If we don't do it now, it will be a lot more eventually."

Murphy said a carbon tax would act as an incentive for firms to become more energy efficient, something he noted the Atlantic trucking industry is already doing. He disputed Nelson's claim that 10,000 jobs could be in jeopardy.

Daniel Allain, the Conservative candidate for the Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe riding, said he's strongly opposed to the proposed carbon tax.

"I'm going to fight ferociously against the Dion tax, it's going to be my number-one priority, by far," he said.

Allain said the carbon tax will be central issue in the local campaign.

Murphy said Stephen Harper, rather than the carbon tax, will be the defining issue of the campaign.

"Stephen Harper and his vision of Canada is the defining issue in this riding. I hear it everywhere I go," he said. "They don't trust that if giving a majority or a strong minority government that he won't shut the lights off in Maritime Canada."