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The NDP government says the administrative costs associated with the province’s carbon tax are $2.1 million annually, but a business advocacy group is questioning why the figures were blanked out of documents it received from the province.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business said Wednesday it had made a freedom of information request to the government on the administration cost of the carbon levy, which was introduced at the start of 2017.

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The 2016 documents released by the government in response were heavily redacted, with actual figures whited out in a memo that outlined the total operating cost of design, implementation and administration from 2017 to 2022, and the capital cost for the design and build of the IT system.

Amber Ruddy, Alberta director of the CFIB, said it was disturbing the government knows the cost of the program but refused to make it public.

However, the government said later Wednesday that Finance Minister Joe Ceci had disclosed the carbon tax administration expense as $2.5 million for 2017-18 at a legislature committee meeting in April.