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Alberta has a well-known prejudice against sales taxes that is quite a bit like Saskatchewan’s fondness for its legacy Crown corporations. Economists would like to see an Alberta PST, and the province could put a moderate dent in its deficit with a small one. But Notley has used up a lot of political capital introducing Albertans to the madness-inducing spectre of carbon taxation. The treasury does not keep much of the revenue from that tax, so it is not really helping with the deficit, but Albertans align themselves spiritually with the oilpatch — the business of carbon. Plenty of people who personally come out ahead on the carbon-tax rebate will never forgive the NDP for it.

Notley cannot be the premier who brought in both a carbon tax and a retail PST, so she might as well make fun of Wall and burn her government’s bridge to sales taxation. Wall’s increase in the rate to 6 per cent shows off some of the features that economists like and taxpayers fear about consumption taxes. It is cheap to raise revenue in a crisis by hiking PST. The change is transparent to the voter, it can be made on very short notice, and the suffering is shared widely. It is an attractive lever for a finance minister to grab — once someone has installed it.