Liberal lobbyist 'intensified' case for delay on gas price promise

The Holt government's reversal on legislation that would lower the price of gas by four cents a litre came just days after a longtime Liberal Party insider lobbied Energy Minister René Legacy on the issue.

Maurice Robichaud, a former communications adviser to Liberal premiers Frank McKenna and Shawn Graham, registered Nov. 25 as a lobbyist, just five days after the government introduced legislation to repeal the cost-of-carbon-adjustor law, public records show.

That law requires the Energy and Utilities Board to pass on the cost of federal clean fuel regulations from producers to consumers via the weekly price setting for gasoline.

Robichaud said in a return filed Dec. 3 that he was lobbying Legacy on behalf of  the Convenience Industry Council of Canada and his "initial focus" was the legislation.

WATCH | 'I said, 'I'll listen:' How retailers' group influenced Liberal delay of bill:

What pushed Holt Liberals to put off a key election promise?

6 hours ago

Duration 2:59

Lobbyist with Liberal ties was hired by a convenience store association days after a bill to repeal the carbon adjustor was introduced.

On Dec. 10, the Liberals halted debate on the bill, which they had promised to pass before Christmas.

Instead they sent the legislation to committee hearings with public witnesses early next year, a breach of their campaign promise to eliminate the adjustor "immediately."

Legacy told reporters the next day that there was "give and take" on Liberal platform commitments.

He said it had recently become clear to him that eliminating the adjustor could shift the carbon cost from consumers to small locally owned gas stations.

"This time I really had the associations come in, I said 'I'll listen,' I want to work with them to see how we can make this work to get affordability to New Brunswickers," he said.

"They said we need to look at this in different ways."

Asked for comment, Robichaud referred CBC News to a statement issued by the association Friday confirming it met with with Legacy.

Mike Hammoud, the association's vice-president for Atlantic Canada, said it's normal to hire "specialists" to deal with governments but added he believed it was the compelling information the organization provided that persuaded the Liberals.

Besides the convenience store association, Legacy also met with the Canadian Fuels Association, the Oil Heat Association of New Brunswick and Irving Oil about the legislation, a government spokesperson said. 

The previous Progressive Conservative government had argued for two years that the adjustor was needed to prevent the carbon cost from hitting small retailers, many of which have thin profit margins.

Mike Holland, who was the PC energy minister, said in June 2023 that "mom and pop shops, small convenience stores with a gas pump out front" might "shut down" with no adjustor in place.

Legacy told reporters Dec. 11 that he had heard Holland make that argument in the past, "but it wasn't intensified" the way it was by industry groups when they met with him.

Eliminating the carbon adjustor was one of the signature Liberal campaign promises on making life more affordable for New Brunswickers.

The adjustor amount fluctuates each week and is 4.03 cents this week. 

The PCs argued when they created it in 2022 that it was necessary because of New Brunswick's regulated gas market, which sees the EUB setting a maximum per-litre price each week.

Without the adjustor added to the EUB formula, retailers might be stuck absorbing the cost of the federal regulations.

Since being lobbied, Legacy has echoed that argument.

"Don't forget that small retailers are New Brunswickers also, and we don't want to create chaos in that industry," he said last week.

Sending the repeal bill to the legislature's law amendments committee also allows for a discussion on whether to eliminate the price-setting regulations altogether, Legacy said.

That would allow the cost of the regulations to be folded back into the price of gas at the pumps but without consumers being able to see it.

"I don't want to prejudge what the results of the committee are going to be," Legacy said.

Another lobbyist who registered last month to lobby the government, Jake Enwright of Syntax Strategic, said he was representing the Canadian Energy Marketers Association.

Enwright, a former staffer to former Conservative Party of Canada leader Andrew Scheer, registered Nov. 22. His client wasn't among the groups Legacy met with, according to the list provided by the minister's spokesperson.