Get Ready for Ruin

Canadians are getting the government they deserve good and hard:

When former finance minister Bill Morneau said in May that the Trudeau government was not considering tax increases at this time because of the COVID-19 recession, the operative phrase was at this time.

In fact, on April 1, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had already increased the federal carbon tax in Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba by 50%, to $30 per tonne of industrial greenhouse gas emissions, up from $20 per tonne last year. ...

Trudeau’s carbon tax increased the costs of gasoline and home heating fuel directly, and indirectly any consumer goods or services that require the use of fossil fuel energy, meaning almost everything.

Trudeau argued his carbon tax increase would leave 80% of households impacted by it better off financially because of its rebate system.

Canadians have no way of independently determining that because it depends on the size of their “carbon footprint” and thus have to take the government’s word for it.

 

(Sidebar: it's called hoodwinking.)

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The federal Liberals will impose a second carbon tax on Canadians in the upcoming Throne Speech, according to reports out of Ottawa.

It will be called Canadian Fuel Standard, a regulatory regime that will require all supplies of fossil fuel to reduce carbon content, reports John Ivison of the National Post.

Canadians will be hit with higher gas prices and home heating bills because of the new tax, Ivison reports, part of Canada’s plan within the Paris Accord to reduce emissions 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Businesses, already reeling because of the COVID-19 pandemic, would be hit with double digit cost increases in energy.

Ivision reports the Liberals have been planning the CFS since they came to power but the COVID-19 pandemic delayed their plans until the end of September when a Throne Speech will bring Parliament back from prorogue.

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Despite the bafflegab put out by certain anti-fossil-fuel activists and politicians, green jobs don’t generate anywhere close to the value added per working hour produced currently in oil, gas, petrochemical and mining industries. So, any policy that particularly penalizes these industries will certainly undermine economic growth, just as the economy is already facing several years of difficulties as we recover from the current pandemic.

This economic cost would be felt most heavily in the Western provinces especially Alberta and Saskatchewan. The Buffalo region (as these two provinces could have been called, when a united province of the two was proposed in 1905) is decidedly unhappy with federal policies. Both provinces contribute over $20 billion per year, equivalent to a 10-per-cent tax on their personal income, in fiscal transfers to the rest of Canada through the federal budget. Even though federal spending is far greater than taxes in these provinces for 2020, that has to do with the huge federal deficit, which is just deferred taxes, anyway. Alberta and Saskatchewan will likely continue their outsized contribution to the rest of Canada when the bill for current spending comes due.