The Alberta Party is promising to scrap the NDP’s carbon tax model and replace it with the party’s own if elected.

Leader Stephen Mandel announced Saturday his party would stop taxing gas and propane used to heat homes or fuel cars, calling the tax a “slush fund” that has hurt families and small business.

Instead, a carbon tax would still apply to heavy emitters, fuel used by air and rail transportation, and in resource extraction.

Facilities that emit more than 100,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases would still have to reduce their emissions under the party’s carbon price.

“Heavy emitters are the ones we really need to look at and find ways to control their emissions,” Mandel said at an event in Edmonton on Saturday.

“If we do that a better job, spend more time and more effort on that, we’ll be more effective dealing with the greenhouse gas issues.”

Climate change activists who organized a march in Alberta’s capital city on Saturday expressed disappointment with Mandel’s policy announcement.

“I’m not going to be the first to say that the carbon tax is the best way to address the crisis, but a lot of these people are coming out and saying, ‘Let’s not do the carbon tax’ but not having an alternative,” Extinction Rebellion Edmonton organizer Tanya Herbert told CTV News.

“Regulation is more effective to deal with these problems, but the people who want to scrap the carbon tax do not want an increase in regulation.”

Funds from the carbon tax have been used as rebates and in green projects across Alberta, including the extension of Edmonton’s LRT.

Mandel said some of those green projects would continue to receive cash through the heavy emitters program, while others could be considered unnecessary.

“We think there’s more than an adequate amount of money to deal with projects that have reasonable gain and reasonable application to be done in our province,” Mandel said.

He did not list which projects he considered unnecessary.

With files from Sarah Plowman