The absolutely not-at-all-revenue-neutral carbon tax is not just frightfully expensive, useless and untenable. It has now become unpopular:
The authors - Drs. Jim Wallace, John Christy and Joe D'Aleo - stated there is "very, very little doubt but that EPA's claim of a Tropical Hot Spot, caused by rising atmospheric CO2 levels, simply does not exist in the real world."
The study stated after naturally occurring events - solar, volcanic, and oceanic - have been accounted for, there is no "record setting" warming to be concerned about.
"At this point, there is no statistically valid proof that past increases in atmospheric CO2 concentrations have caused the officially reported rising, even claimed record setting temperatures."
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The last remaining Liberal provincial premier in Canada, Andrew Furey of Newfoundland and Labrador, has described the carbon tax as “net negative” and “a punishment for residents at a time of soaring prices and stagnant wages”, while the leader of the Ontario Liberals, Bonnie Crombie, announced that a carbon tax would not be part of her platform. Something similar is also happening with the Left-wing opposition in the oil-rich province of Alberta. On Tuesday, Trudeau issued a challenge to all anti-carbon tax provinces to produce their own alternatives to Ottawa’s carbon levy, something they are unlikely to do. Clearly, these politicians are feeling the need to distance themselves from the increasingly toxic Trudeau brand.
The idea of putting a price on carbon was once heralded by economists as an efficient, market-based method to spur decarbonisation, and had been endorsed by right-of-centre policymakers in Canada. When Trudeau implemented carbon pricing in 2019, amid broad levels of public support, it seemed like an easy policy and political victory. But subsequent bouts of inflation and a worsening cost-of-living crisis made an anodyne measure feel like an unnecessary burden for many.
(Sidebar: this is because no one thought this through. It's one thing for the moron to do so because he is the Dutch Elm disease of prime ministers but it is quite something else when no one wants to do the math on this.)
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The federation says 56 percent of small firms will need to raise prices if the carbon tax increases. It also noted that 45 percent of small businesses will need to freeze or reduce wages, and 33 percent have said the increased costs will hurt their ability to invest in environmental initiatives.
“The giant hike in carbon taxes further highlights how unfair this tax is for small businesses,” CFIB president Dan Kelly said. “The first thing Ottawa must do is freeze the upcoming tax hike. The whole carbon tax system has become a shell game, and sadly, small firms are unfairly punished by it.”
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That hurts, especially because there’s little any of us can do about such a cost. Winter is freezing cold. We need to keep our homes heated.
It’s also sticky in Alberta, in particular, because of our political reality, that the Trudeau Liberals decided to drop the carbon tax on home-heating oil for three years, thus providing welcome relief to any Canadians who heat their homes that way, but hardly anyone in Alberta uses home-heating oil. Yet it’s widely used in the Maritimes, where — surprise, surprise — the Liberals hope to hold and win seats in the next federal election.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith detailed the “more than double” fact about the carbon tax on natural gas in her Zoom presentation to the House of Commons parliamentary government operations committee.
The average Alberta home uses about 10 gigajoules (GJ) of natural gas per month, says Atco gas. The carbon tax on one gigajoule is going up to $4.09, while the price for that same gigajoule itself is $1.72, Smith told the committee.
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Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says the carbon price remains a “tough political battle” as the controversial decision to keep raising the price is set to kick in on Monday.
Guilbeault told The West Block host Mercedes Stephenson that the increase does more financial good than harm for average Canadians, and is necessary to solve climate change.
“We have a plan that is balanced, that is asking big polluters to do more — way more — than Canadians, but Canadians also have a contribution. We all have a role to play,” he said.
The minister also recognized that many are struggling to make ends meet due to the rising cost of living, but he emphasized that low income and middle class Canadians will get the money from the carbon price increase back in their pockets.
“If we remove carbon pricing from the equation for individuals, people — eight out of 10 Canadian families will be worse off economically. They will have less money in their bank account if we do that,” he said.
(Sidebar: rather, he pushed for this insane tax hoping that Canadians would walk across the second-biggest country on the planet and never heat their homes in twenty below weather. It gets better. Who gives China coal? We do. Isn't THAT polluting?)
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The problem is that Trudeau’s claim made no sense because his climate change policy includes not only a national carbon tax, but also “the heavy hand of regulations” plus “incentives … subsidies and rewards” to the private sector by a government attempting to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, which seldom ends well.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says premiers would rather complain and "make political hay" out of his federal carbon pricing program than present an alternative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Trudeau made the remarks after Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey wrote a letter urging him to convene an "emergency meeting of leaders" to discuss options.
Furey is among seven provincial leaders who wanted Trudeau to forgo a planned $15-per-tonne increase in the federal consumer carbon price, which went into effect today.
Many of them have long opposed any carbon levy, but say the affordability crisis plaguing Canadians is reason enough not to increase it further.
But Trudeau says the increase will also mean larger rebates, which families are set to receive beginning April 15 to help offset the higher cost of fuel.
When is the next rebate payments and how much can Canadians get?
The provinces that pay the federal carbon tax also receive the federal rebate. B.C. and Northwest Territories in turn provide their own rebates that are slightly different.
B.C.’s rebate, for example, is income based, and about one-third of all households in the province don’t qualify for it.
The federal rebate, which is deposited or mailed out four times a year, is divided among households based on family size, not by income. Each year Environment and Climate Change Canada calculates the expected revenues from carbon pricing in each province, and by law has to return 90 per cent of those revenues in rebates. Part of the remaining 10 per cent goes to increase rural resident rebates by 20 per cent. Some of the rest is earmarked to help businesses become more fuel efficient, but those programs have been very slow to roll out. Most businesses haven’t received anything in the five years since carbon pricing began.
The rebates increase as the price increases, however this year many households in the Atlantic provinces won’t see an increase. That’s because almost one-third of households in those provinces use heating oil and since October have been exempted from paying the carbon tax. That reduction is reflected in the rebate amounts.
The rebates vary because carbon pricing totals vary based on things like heating use and driving distances. Alberta and Saskatchewan, for example, typically use more natural gas for heat per households than in Ontario or Manitoba.
The next rebate payment is due on April 15. Here are the quarterly amounts, by province, for an individual, a couple, and a family of four. In a single parent households, the first child is treated the same as a spouse for the rebate amount.
Rural residents, who tend to drive longer distance, are to receive 20 per cent more.
Yukon and Nunavut pay the federal carbon tax but have their own unique rebate programs.
Alberta
Single: $225 Couple: $337.50 Family of four: $450
Saskatchewan
Single: $188 Couple: $282 Family of four: $376
Manitoba
Single: $150 Couple: $225 Family of four: $300
Ontario
Single: $140 Couple: $210 Family of four: $280
New Brunswick
Single: $95 Couple: $142.50 Family of four: $190
Nova Scotia
Single: $103 Couple: $154.50 Family of four: $206
Prince Edward Island
Single: $110 Couple: $165 Family of four: $220*
*All households in P.E.I. are considered rural and the rebates for all include the 20 per cent top up.
Newfoundland and Labrador
Single: $149 Couple: $223.50 Family of four: $298
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But Liberal MPs accused the premiers of “screaming hypocrisy” for raising either electricity prices or provincial gas taxes in their respective provinces on the same date as the schedule increase, April 1.
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith were invited by the Conservative MP who chairs the government operations committee to explain, as Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe did the day prior, why the federal government should pause its carbon tax increase on Monday.
“We need to think bigger,” Higgs told MPs. “Our situation in Canada is that we’re too isolated in our bubble. We’re not reaching our potential to help the world and we’re causing huge financial impact right across this country on our citizens, and it’s unnecessary.”
New Brunswick scrapped its own provincial carbon tax scheme just last year, and reluctantly joined the federal program arguing that it would provide relief to its citizens.
Higgs was repeatedly asked by Liberal MPs Wayne Long and Irek Kusmierczyk what his alternative to the federal levy would be in his province. Higgs said New Brunswick could instead ship liquified natural gas (LNG) to Europe to replace coal plants and thus reduce global emissions.
“We don’t have a gas supply currently, and that is the issue,” he said.
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The document includes his government’s previously released plans for coastal protection, climate change, clean electricity and green hydrogen.
He submitted the plan to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a letter dated March 28 in which Houston says the province disagrees that a carbon tax is the best mechanism to address climate change in Nova Scotia.
The prime minister told reporters today in the Halifax area that he hasn't see the details of Houston's plan.
Trudeau says he is open to talking with Houston but adds that Nova Scotia's earlier climate change plans haven't met federal requirements, which include a price on carbon.
Here comes the great unwashed:
As of April 1, every time you open your fridge, every time you fill up your car, and every time you pay for the roof over your family’s head, the Liberal-NDP coalition no one asked for will now be coming for even more of your hard-earned wages, at a time when millions of Canadians have already been forced onto the precipice of economic ruin.
The numbers don’t lie. Canada’s standard of living has completely collapsed in comparison to our American neighbours to the south, where one has the luxury of reinvention and affordability 50 times over. In contrast, Canadians are forced to swap hamster wheels, and even make cannonball runs to the border when our failing public healthcare system offers government suicide over timely and attentive care.
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Hundreds of protesters, many waving Canadian and Alberta flags and holding "axe the tax" signs, blocked the major highway down to a single lane. RCMP officers were on hand to monitor the event.
"I'm here because our country is falling apart and our government has been running us into the ground and it just needs to stop," said military veteran Gary Lambert of Innisfail as he stood on the side of the highway.
"It's not just about 'axe the tax.' It's about the freedoms. It's about our right to free speech."
The event, organized by a group called Nationwide Protest Against Carbon Tax, was one of about 15 that took place across the country, including on Parliament Hill.
There were also protests at various provincial boundaries. Protesters temporarily blocked part of the Trans-Canada Highway linking Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and Saskatchewan and Alberta.
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**BREAKING:
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) April 1, 2024
Canadians join together in AXE THE TAX protest at the New Brunswick-Nova Scotia border.
Justin Trudeau is increasing the carbon tax by 23% today and Canadians are not having it.
🚨🚨🚨 pic.twitter.com/xnbUpHFY0y
Anger over the increase to the federal carbon price led to protests across the country Monday, including several that stalled traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway and at provincial border crossings.
Ottawa’s planned $15-per-tonne increase in the federal consumer carbon price came into effect Monday, bringing the levy to $80 per tonne.
That translates to the carbon price on fuel rising from about $0.14 to almost $0.18, bringing a litre of gasoline up 3.3 cents per litre on average.
Speaking outside a gas station in Nanaimo, B.C., Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called Monday’s increase a “cruel April Fool’s Day joke on Canadians” amid the high cost of living.
“We need to unify our country around an optimistic vision to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime,” he said when asked about the protests.
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The federal carbon tax increased from $65 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions to $80 on April 1, and is set to rise until it hits $170 per tonne in 2030.
Rita Abouarrage, who attended the protest on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, said she has been forced to move back in with her parents despite working a full-time job and being paid more than minimum wage.
“I can’t afford $2,000 for an apartment, and then trying to eat, pay for your vehicle, and heat and electricity, it’s too much,” she said.
Ms. Abourrage also lamented that, at the same time, politicians are “giving themselves raises and we’re getting poorer and poorer.”
MPs received a 4.4 percent pay increase April 1, increasing their salaries by $8,500 to more than $200,000 per year.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on April 1 that the Canada Carbon Rebate is set to increase at the same time as the tax, which will put “more money back in the pockets of eight out of 10 Canadian families” and help with affordability.
“We’re both fighting climate change and one of the most efficient ways possible and putting more money back in people’s pockets with checks that arrive four times a year,” he said.
Meanwhile the Conservatives, citing Parliamentary Budget Officer figures, have argued the overall effect of the tax makes eight out of ten Canadians worse off financially during the cost-of-living crisis and have called for it to be rescinded.
Agriculture industry representative Janet Krayden, a consultant at Crystal Clear Connections, told Parliament Hill protesters that Canadian farmers are “up against the wall” because of government regulations.
She said the federal carbon tax increases the cost of farmers’ inputs such as fertilizer and fuel, which is then passed on to consumers.
“It hurts the environment too, because the food has to get here somehow, and it will come in by trucks and planes rather than by growing in our own country,” she said in her speech.
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