Having tolls removed from a major route in British Columbia, Canada, has taken some of the sting out of the cost of operating a trucking business in that province, but there’s still plenty of sting to go around.

In late September, the government removed a $20 truck toll and $10 passenger vehicle toll from the Coquihalla Highway, which connects the city of Hope to Kamloops, B.C., in the Canadian West.

Provincial officials said that truckers were pleased with the move, and they were.

“Given the price of fuel, truckers are very happy with this,” Bridgitte Anderson, spokeswoman for British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell, told Land Line.

Truckers welcomed the news but are quick to point out that it was the Campbell government that began collecting a carbon tax on fuel July 1.

Joanne Ritchie, executive director of the Owner-Operators Business Association of Canada, said truckers stand to pay an extra $42 million in carbon taxes in 2009 because of the fuel they consume. The tax is collected on so-called pollutants, including diesel and gasoline.

“The amount will continue to climb as the tax increases annually,” Ritchie told Land Line. “At current consumption levels, the carbon tax will cost trucking $422 million over the next five years.”

Truckers – including Dick Rankins, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen who runs from the Lower 48 states as well as British Columbia and Alaska – say the B.C. in British Columbia could soon stand for “Bring Cash.”

“It’s another tax and another tax and another tax,” Rankins, a member of both OBAC and the U.S.-based Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, told Land Line.

“Trucks will burn the most amount of fuel and will pay the most amount of tax,” he said.

So-called non-polluters and “green” businesses will receive payments from the carbon tax fund from the 2.4 cents per liter collected the first year. The amount collected from fuel will amount to 7.2 cents per liter by 2012.

Rankins and others are skeptical about where their hard-earned money will be going.

“I’d be interested in paying it if they were doing something with that money that actually had something to do with clean air,” Rankins said.

– By David Tanner, staff writer
david_tanner@landlinemag.com