Article content

You can excuse rank-and-file Tories in Manitoba for feeling a little ripped off these days.

After slugging it out for years in opposition, giving money, donating time and fighting the good fight for the party – including waging war against the high-tax, big government doctrine that dominated Manitoba politics throughout the previous NDP administration’s 17 1/2 years in office – PC party members are now being told they have to suck it up and accept something that goes against every fibre in their bodies: a tax hike.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Carbon tax tough medicine for rank-and-file Tories Back to video

A carbon tax to be precise, a $25-per-tonne levy that will translate into a five-cent-per-litre tax at the pump and a five-cent-per-cubic-metre charge on Manitobans’ natural gas heating bills. It’s a tax that will cost an average family of four $356 a year, the same family that just got hit with a one-point increase in the PST a few years ago under an NDP government.

The tax is not a made-in-Manitoba one, as it’s being presented by party officials. The tax is the brainchild of New Brunswicker David McLaughlin, Premier Brian Pallister’s campaign manager during the 2016 election whose brand of left-leaning Maritime conservatism has been imported into Manitoba.