It's been just over a month since the carbon tax has come into effect in Saskatchewan, and as you can expect, the prices at the pump have changed.

According to Dan McTeague, Senior Petroleum Analyst with Gas Buddy, prices in Saskatchewan are up $0.05 per litre from this point last year.

"On a day like today, if we didn't have that tax we'd be paying no more than $1.21.9 rather than $1.26.9 so it is having an effect. While there are rebates galore, I think as time goes on people forget this and we get into colder weather and prices for everything else starts to rise, we might find that the price itself is artificially higher than what it would otherwise be. It certainly beats the rate of inflation so we'll see what happens, but no doubt prices are higher than they were last year."

One of the legs the carbon tax argument has been standing on is that the higher prices of fuel and things that use it will encourage people to change their spending habits and drive less. This so far has not been the case.

"No, because people will decide to move that money elsewhere and not buy other things, but it's an awful way to try and throttle the economy when of course most vehicles are far more fuel efficient now than they were ten years ago, and in ten years from now without having to impose a carbon tax on people, those efficiencies will continue to willy nilly what governments try to do to provide a tax grab vs. what I consider to be sound environmental policy."

McTeague has spent some time in political office in Ontario, where he spent time as a Liberal member of parliament from 1993-2004, but despite having ties to the party imposing the tax on the rest of the nation, McTeague is also critical towards the climate change initiative.

"I come from a province where the carbon tax was absolutely rejected last June, you're next door to a province that did the same thing just a couple of weeks ago, I sense that there's going to be a turning point come October, and hopefully that'll help people better manage their budgets, but no doubt 2-4.6 cents a litre this year in terms of higher gasoline costs as a result of this carbon tax rising by about 2.2-2.3 cents every April 1st, and of course diesel which is the fuel that drives our economy whether we like it or not rising even more than that, by 5.4-5.5 cents a litre, ending up about  2.5 cents a year, will certainly make the cost of living going forward a lot more expensive no matter what the markets do."

McTeague was not a fan of the carbon tax when it was first put before his party in 2008, and is in favour of different climate change plans, such as more fuel-efficient vehicles. He spent time working with Toyota of Canada before his time in office and was part of the team that released the original Prius models, a vehicle known for its fuel efficiency.