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The NDP government’s budget touts the climate change plan and its additional revenues as a way to offset the sharp drop in oil and gas revenues — now projected to hit their lowest levels in 40 years.

At the same time, the province is planning to fund its tax cut for small businesses, slashing their corporate income tax to two percent from three per cent, out of the climate change program “to help small businesses adjust to the cost of carbon.”

It is also exempting farms, aboriginals, airlines flying planes in and out of Alberta and energy companies that produce and use natural gas on a specific site from the carbon levy.

The Alberta government is also giving out rebates of $300 in 2018 for Albertans with incomes below $47,500 per year and $450 to couples who together make less than $95,000 to offset the carbon levy’s effect on the cost of gasoline and natural gas for heating homes.

The carbon levy will add 4.49 cents to the price of each litre of gasoline sold in the province after Jan. 1, and $1.01 per gigajoule to the price of retail natural gas.

“We are not doing this on a consumption basis,” Ceci said of the carbon levy, while also rejecting the idea of giving rebates to people who successfully reduce their emissions.

Following the collapse in both oil and gas prices and the resulting slowdown in economic activity, the provincial government expects to pull in $1.4 billion in oil and gas related revenues this year – a sharp drop from the $2.7 billion in energy revenues last year and $8.9 billion the year before.