Dauphin MLA Brad Michaleski held an open pre-budget meeting with constituents in Roblin last night, and among the subjects covered was carbon pricing.
Jeff Elliott, a farmer from Grandview, says producers burn a lot of fuel and an added carbon tax is a cost they can't pass on.
"Agriculture producers, we don't speak money unless we have to... We don't go spend money on excess fuel, it's cost us money. Adding a carbon tax and adding tax to the fuel we burn is going to cut our bottom lines and take away from our profitability," says Elliot.
The province is currently developing a Made-in-Manitoba Climate Action Plan, which will include some sort of carbon pricing system.
The Canadian government is telling provinces to have a carbon pricing system in place by 2018 or a federal fee will be imposed.
Michaleski says its good to get viewpoints from across the region, and he'll be able to take their messages to Winnipeg.
One of the other issues raised was wait and travel times for residents in rural areas.
Michaleski says, "We're looking at departments and how they're operating... the solution to the wait times is if we do the evaluation of the departments, look for the savings, look for the efficiencies that's where we're going to find the solutions."
MLA Michaleski plans to hold an open house at his constituency office in Dauphin scheduled for December 17th.
