It will only make sense if the per cost panel is less than certain number (if my math is correct it should be $175), but if the panel cost is over $175 then even with more sales taxes in other provinces the total will be cheaper. That is of course on capital cost not operational, also, not counting the “forced recycling” mentioned.
The $14 is what ARMA claims in their press relesaes but they haven't broken down where they came at that number. Many analysts seem to think it could be much higher.
The net effect along with other regulatory moves the AB gov't has taken (they banned all renewables projects outright for some months a couple years ag) is to discourage investment in what was formerly a growing sector.
Has always seemed like a policy failure to not just charge those fees at the point of sale and then fund a robust waste disposal program for the community.
Why don't they slap some punitive taxes on O&G executives whose companies that leave abandoned wells all over the province? No? Government too captured by corporate interests?
She (Danielle Smith) is one of the shrewdest politicians in North America right now, actually.
Not, like good shrewd, but very tactically smart and with a very capable public relations ability capable of keeping a notoriously hard-to-tame right wing activist base in line behind her gov't.
Alberta is the most US-like province. As it's not been hit by Trump tariffs, it opposes any change to the current situation. As it's based on oil revenue (with some food production), of course it opposes renewable energy sources. Bit selfish, it is.
I wonder how loud they'd yowl if "no trade with Canada" gores their ox?
Implicit in all the "we'll bring Canada to heel" and "we don't need anything from Canada" talk is an Alberta/Sask exception. They don't mean AB/SK. They mean the rest of Canada, which leans further to the left politically and has more of a manufacturing sector or agricultural / forestry focus.
Also notably there are US states like Texas which are also extremely focused on fossil fuel production which aren't taking this aggressive anti-renewables stance. Alberta is actually further on this axis than any other regime in North America -- taking on a very explicit anti-renewables stance. Even effectively (through regulation) banning their use in large scale datacentre rollouts.
The local elites there are extremely threatened by any renewable talk; they run an active disinformation campaign, and formerly the province had one of the fastest growing renewable sectors in the world. (Alberta gets a lot of solar hours and has high winds, too)
Aside, I was coming back from Edmonton a couple days ago and in the airport there's a wine/liquor store with a sandwich board out front proudly proclaiming that they "have US wine & liquor for sale!" -- completely thumbing nose at the rest of the country as a business opportunity.
Different product. Bourbon owns a lot of headspace with consumers, and is not available in most of the country right now. There are Canadian made Bourbon-like products, but nothing will fill that niche for purists.
I imagine there's a similar thing going on with California wines. But less so.
> Implicit in all the "we'll bring Canada to heel" and "we don't need anything from Canada" talk is an Alberta/Sask exception. They don't mean AB/SK. They mean the rest of Canada, which leans further to the left politically and has more of a manufacturing sector or agricultural / forestry focus.
The paradox is that if we take the US administration at their word, that it is the trade deficit that is the problem they need to solve, then Alberta is 100% of the problem. Ontario, BC, Quebec have basically equal trade with the US. We ship a lot to the US, but we ship a lot of things we could make domestically from the US, though that is rapidly changing (for instance a major rail car manufacturing process is spinning up to replace that as an import from the US).
Alberta is basically 100% exports to the US, with negligible imports from the US.
So it's hilarious when Alberta says this isn't their trade war. Again, if we take Trump and his crew of rapists at their word, it is completely their trade war.
Apparently because the US buys Alberta oil, the rest of the Canada should be punished somehow? How spectacularly stupid.
But yes, Danielle Smith is a vile human and is a traitor to Canada. I get why Albertans elected her -- there are legitimate grievances and a better "deal" to be had -- but she is going to do spectacular damage to the province.
> Apparently because the US buys Alberta oil, the rest of the Canada should be punished somehow? How spectacularly stupid.
I mean they clearly actually mean the opposite. And are doing the opposite. They're making moves to push Alberta out of confederation. I think at this point it should be clear the Trump regime funding and supporting Alberta "separatist" campaigns. At least giving it a megaphone far beyond its actual real local support base.
So, yeah, one way of "dealing with" the "trade deficit" there is to simply push Alberta out of Canada.
Another (longer-term) move is taking over Venezuela and getting an alternate source for heavy crude.
This is an insane take. A $14 recycling tax per $1000+ panel comes to <1.4%, which is around a quarter of federal sales tax for example, or 1/10 of combined GST and PST somewhere like BC.
Alberta has no provincial sales tax for the record and is the ONLY province without provincial sales tax. Solar panels are still more expensive in every other province in Canada based on sales tax rates alone.
<1.4% to fund the proper recycling of a solar panel seems more than reasonable.
Edit - also Alberta already has the lowest cost per installed watt of any province due to generally lower taxes and more vibrant construction ecosystem. Plus no PST. Complaining about a recycling fee is completely brain-dead and/or propaganda.
$14 per panel seems pretty good. This link estimates the cost at $15-45 USD, I've heard of costs as high as a couple hundred euros in France (except it's billed directly to the manufacturer so it's hidden). Complaining about $14 in the only Canadian province without PST is ridiculous.
They probably should increase the levies. On the other hand, the province does get $20 billion+ in direct oil revenue per year (royalties), so it's not like oil companies are just straight up robbing us.
Except that revenue doesn't go towards well cleanup. Not really.
Also it goes up and down drastically. After Trump is finished making a mess in Hormuz, the number will go down again, and Alberta finance ministers will go back to ranting about reigning in excessive spending.
Unless you've got the relevant licenses to install the panel up to code and hook into the power grid properly, yes, the cost of the installation is the cost.
Also, 5% would still be lower than the lowest PST of any province lol.
Entrenched interests want to take us all down with them, unfortunately. They will burn the field and salt the earth rather than yield control and lose their parasitical source of wealth.
This is a good lesson in how headlines can be used to manipulate you - "slaps", "punitive tax"
I’m not at all defending this, but before you freak out, it’s a $14 fee per solar panel. Not like 25% tax on utilities that produce solar or somesuch.
In case you want to appropriately calibrate your anger.
> it’s a $14 fee per solar panel
Note that usually you mount many solar panels, not just one, so this will stack relatively quickly.
It will only make sense if the per cost panel is less than certain number (if my math is correct it should be $175), but if the panel cost is over $175 then even with more sales taxes in other provinces the total will be cheaper. That is of course on capital cost not operational, also, not counting the “forced recycling” mentioned.
The $14 is what ARMA claims in their press relesaes but they haven't broken down where they came at that number. Many analysts seem to think it could be much higher.
The net effect along with other regulatory moves the AB gov't has taken (they banned all renewables projects outright for some months a couple years ag) is to discourage investment in what was formerly a growing sector.
Disposal/recycling fees should be applied to all products.
Has always seemed like a policy failure to not just charge those fees at the point of sale and then fund a robust waste disposal program for the community.
I will believe that's the goal when I see the tax going directly to aid in disposal.
In this case it should be a dedicated fund for future disposal, as the majority of panels in service right now won’t need disposal for many years.
Why don't they slap some punitive taxes on O&G executives whose companies that leave abandoned wells all over the province? No? Government too captured by corporate interests?
"dumbasses do a dumbass thing"
She (Danielle Smith) is one of the shrewdest politicians in North America right now, actually.
Not, like good shrewd, but very tactically smart and with a very capable public relations ability capable of keeping a notoriously hard-to-tame right wing activist base in line behind her gov't.
Best not to underestimate her.
Alberta is the most US-like province. As it's not been hit by Trump tariffs, it opposes any change to the current situation. As it's based on oil revenue (with some food production), of course it opposes renewable energy sources. Bit selfish, it is.
I wonder how loud they'd yowl if "no trade with Canada" gores their ox?
Implicit in all the "we'll bring Canada to heel" and "we don't need anything from Canada" talk is an Alberta/Sask exception. They don't mean AB/SK. They mean the rest of Canada, which leans further to the left politically and has more of a manufacturing sector or agricultural / forestry focus.
Also notably there are US states like Texas which are also extremely focused on fossil fuel production which aren't taking this aggressive anti-renewables stance. Alberta is actually further on this axis than any other regime in North America -- taking on a very explicit anti-renewables stance. Even effectively (through regulation) banning their use in large scale datacentre rollouts.
The local elites there are extremely threatened by any renewable talk; they run an active disinformation campaign, and formerly the province had one of the fastest growing renewable sectors in the world. (Alberta gets a lot of solar hours and has high winds, too)
Aside, I was coming back from Edmonton a couple days ago and in the airport there's a wine/liquor store with a sandwich board out front proudly proclaiming that they "have US wine & liquor for sale!" -- completely thumbing nose at the rest of the country as a business opportunity.
The last bit boggles my mind. I'm american. There's not a single bottle of whisky made down here that can compete with Canadian whisky.
Try Westward out of Portland.
Different product. Bourbon owns a lot of headspace with consumers, and is not available in most of the country right now. There are Canadian made Bourbon-like products, but nothing will fill that niche for purists.
I imagine there's a similar thing going on with California wines. But less so.
> Implicit in all the "we'll bring Canada to heel" and "we don't need anything from Canada" talk is an Alberta/Sask exception. They don't mean AB/SK. They mean the rest of Canada, which leans further to the left politically and has more of a manufacturing sector or agricultural / forestry focus.
The paradox is that if we take the US administration at their word, that it is the trade deficit that is the problem they need to solve, then Alberta is 100% of the problem. Ontario, BC, Quebec have basically equal trade with the US. We ship a lot to the US, but we ship a lot of things we could make domestically from the US, though that is rapidly changing (for instance a major rail car manufacturing process is spinning up to replace that as an import from the US).
Alberta is basically 100% exports to the US, with negligible imports from the US.
So it's hilarious when Alberta says this isn't their trade war. Again, if we take Trump and his crew of rapists at their word, it is completely their trade war.
Apparently because the US buys Alberta oil, the rest of the Canada should be punished somehow? How spectacularly stupid.
But yes, Danielle Smith is a vile human and is a traitor to Canada. I get why Albertans elected her -- there are legitimate grievances and a better "deal" to be had -- but she is going to do spectacular damage to the province.
> Apparently because the US buys Alberta oil, the rest of the Canada should be punished somehow? How spectacularly stupid.
I mean they clearly actually mean the opposite. And are doing the opposite. They're making moves to push Alberta out of confederation. I think at this point it should be clear the Trump regime funding and supporting Alberta "separatist" campaigns. At least giving it a megaphone far beyond its actual real local support base.
So, yeah, one way of "dealing with" the "trade deficit" there is to simply push Alberta out of Canada.
Another (longer-term) move is taking over Venezuela and getting an alternate source for heavy crude.
Notably both paths are being taken.
This is an insane take. A $14 recycling tax per $1000+ panel comes to <1.4%, which is around a quarter of federal sales tax for example, or 1/10 of combined GST and PST somewhere like BC.
Alberta has no provincial sales tax for the record and is the ONLY province without provincial sales tax. Solar panels are still more expensive in every other province in Canada based on sales tax rates alone.
<1.4% to fund the proper recycling of a solar panel seems more than reasonable.
Edit - also Alberta already has the lowest cost per installed watt of any province due to generally lower taxes and more vibrant construction ecosystem. Plus no PST. Complaining about a recycling fee is completely brain-dead and/or propaganda.
Edit 2 - https://www.pv-magazine.com/2026/06/05/solar-panel-recycling...
$14 per panel seems pretty good. This link estimates the cost at $15-45 USD, I've heard of costs as high as a couple hundred euros in France (except it's billed directly to the manufacturer so it's hidden). Complaining about $14 in the only Canadian province without PST is ridiculous.
$1000 panel? I’m pretty sure 600 watt panels are coming in at <$100 on the global market. Prices have come down a lot in the past decade.
I'm cool with cleanup costs up front...
Can Alberta apply it to oil and gas companies too?
There is a very underfunded https://www.orphanwell.ca/ program but I agree with your point.
They probably should increase the levies. On the other hand, the province does get $20 billion+ in direct oil revenue per year (royalties), so it's not like oil companies are just straight up robbing us.
Except that revenue doesn't go towards well cleanup. Not really.
Also it goes up and down drastically. After Trump is finished making a mess in Hormuz, the number will go down again, and Alberta finance ministers will go back to ranting about reigning in excessive spending.
Spare me. Even if the tax itself is whatever, saying that UCP didn't mean this at the very least as empty propaganda is purposefully glib.
Provide sources for your $1000+ panel.
https://solarpowerdepot.ca/canadian-solar-450w-mono-bifacial...
https://solarshoppingmall.com/products/renesola-450w-mono-so...
Those numbers point more towards 5-10% cost per panel.
I think your “$1,000+ panel” is conflating the hardware with its share of the entire installation. I don't know how else to explain it.
Also the "$14" number was put out by AMRA (the government's body) without any explanation of how they arrived at that number.
TFA is biased, yes, but its bias is frankly justifiable in the current context. While your "take" seems profoundly dishonest.
Unless you've got the relevant licenses to install the panel up to code and hook into the power grid properly, yes, the cost of the installation is the cost.
Also, 5% would still be lower than the lowest PST of any province lol.
You're moving the goal posts. We are talking about material / per-unit costs.
$14 is still less than the provincial tax of any other province on a $350 panel.
But bulk buyers of panels aren't the end consumer. Passing that on as part of a $15000 installation over 15 years is nothing.
Regressives that will be left behind by most of the world within 10 years.
Entrenched interests want to take us all down with them, unfortunately. They will burn the field and salt the earth rather than yield control and lose their parasitical source of wealth.