Monday, March 17, 2025

The New Boss Is the Same As the Old Boss

Perhaps worse:

Mark Carney’s first act as a prime minister of Canada was to lie to the Canadian people. That may seem like a bold allegation, but there are no two ways about it.

Carney held a cabinet meeting, invited the TV cameras in and held a Trump-style executive order signing that was nothing but a charade.

TV cameras aren’t normally allowed into Canadian cabinet meetings, but Carney — just hours after being sworn in as PM — invited the media to watch him sign away the consumer carbon tax.

“Based on the discussion we’ve had, and consistent with the promise that I made and others supported, we will be eliminating the Canada Fuel Charge, the consumer fuel charge, immediately,” Carney said.

Immediately after that, Carney signed a document as if his signature wiped away the hated tax.

To actually do away with the consumer portion of the carbon tax, but not the carbon tax completely, would require an act of Parliament. The Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act was passed in 2018 and allows the Governor in Council, meaning cabinet advising the Governor General, to adjust the tax rate, but not do away with it.

 

Now, about that:

Liberal leader and prime-minister designate Mark Carney, having been the world’s leading corporate lobbyist for global carbon taxes for years, now says he’s scrapping outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “consumer carbon tax.”

But what he’s doing is folding it into Trudeau’s industrial carbon tax and adding a second carbon tax — a tariff that Canadians will pay on many imported goods — misleadingly described as a “border adjustment mechanism.”

But that’s just one example of how the Liberals have misled Canadians not only about carbon taxes but about what they have accomplished.

Trudeau said he favoured a carbon tax to reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions because it’s more efficient and effective than government subsidies and regulations.

What he failed to mention is that his climate change plan includes government subsidies and regulations in addition to the carbon tax, earmarking more than $200 billion of federal taxpayers’ money to pay for them. ...

For years, the Trudeau Liberals misleadingly cited only the finding of independent, non-partisan parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux that most families receive more in rebates than they pay in climate taxes when considering only its fiscal impact.

But they ignored and later tried to discredit his additional finding that when factoring in the damage the carbon tax does to the Canadian economy, most families pay more in carbon taxes than they receive in rebates.

For years the Trudeau Liberals have insisted their carbon tax is “revenue neutral,” meaning all the money raised was returned to Canadians when in fact it was not revenue neutral, because the federal government did not rebate the GST Canadians pay on top of the carbon tax.

 

 Oh, there's more:

But in reality, Carney’s plan is an exercise in misdirection. Instead of paying the “consumer carbon tax” directly and receiving carbon rebates, Canadians will pay more via higher prices for products that flow from Canada’s “large industrial emitters,” who Carney plans to saddle with higher carbon taxes, indirectly imposing the consumer carbon tax by passing those costs onto Canadians. ...

What Carney does not mention is that much of the costs imposed on “those companies” will also be folded into the costs of the products consumers buy, while the cause of rising prices will be less distinguishable and attributable to government action.

Moreover, Carney says he wants to make Canada a “clean energy superpower” and “expand and modernize our energy infrastructure so that we are less dependent on foreign suppliers, and the United States as a customer.” But this too is absurd. Far from being in any way poised to become a “clean energy superpower,” Canada likely won’t meet its own projected electricity demand by 2050 under existing environmental regulations.

For example, to generate the electricity needed through 2050 solely with solar power,

Canada would need to build 840 solar-power generation stations the size of Alberta’s Travers Solar Project, which would take about 1,700 construction years to accomplish.

 

In short, Canadians will pay more for a tax that has NOT been eliminated (why not eliminate the industrial carbon tax, Carney?) and for Carney's vanity green projects. The same man who doesn't think you need to know his personal wealth and who jet-sets across the globe begging the weakened European Union for help against the Orange Menace.

Enjoy the decline, Canada. 


Also:

Carney has long been linked with left-wing environmental ideas and policies that are both costly and unattainable. “Climate change is an existential threat,” he said in 2021. “We all recognize that, and there’s increasing urgency around it.” He previously served as the United Nations special envoy on climate action and finance, chaired COP26, supported the concept of net-zero climate solutions and founded a financial alliance for net-zero emissions.

He’s also backed a sustainable world economy or values-led economy. “I’m optimistic about sustainability and the road to net zero in the sense that it provides an opportunity to realign our social values and value in the market,” he said in a 2021 interview with Strategy+Business. He supported instilling “values-based leadership, to drive this transformation” as well as “effective governance and policy, by leveraging the social solidarity we saw develop over the pandemic.”

Who does this sound like? Trudeau.

In a June 2024 statement for World Environment Day, Trudeau, then the prime minister, said that climate change was impacting the population at “an alarming rate.”

“It is our collective responsibility to protect, restore, and preserve the environment for our children and grandchildren. From combatting unprecedented wildfires to ensuring clean air and fresh water, we remain steadfast in doing whatever it takes to protect our planet.”

This helps explain why the environment has been Trudeau’s biggest pet project: over $100 billion in taxpayer dollars have been spent on climate change policies, and he’s focused relentlessly on — you guessed it — working towards a goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. ...

What about Carney’s proposal to scrap Trudeau’s hated carbon tax during the leadership race? Things aren’t quite what they seem. The new prime minister has long supported carbon offsets, and told the Senate banking committee in May 2024 that the carbon tax “served a purpose up until now.” We can safely say he’s changed his tune because Trudeau made this issue unviable. Plus, Carney is planning to replace it with an incentive system that rewards Canadians “for making greener choices.” That’s hardly an improvement.

Well, what about Carney’s proposal to eliminate Trudeau’s capital gains tax increase and support a middle class tax cut? It sounds positive, but he’s also planning to follow Trudeau’s lead and spend the taxpayers’ money like a drunken sailor. This reportedly includes running a deficit “to invest and grow” the Canadian economy, penalizing “high-polluting foreign imports,” doubling the amount of new housing construction over a decade and supporting retaliatory tariffs against the U.S. Same old story, alas.

The proof is in the pudding, ladies and gentlemen. Carney and Trudeau are virtually two sides of the same political coin, with only small differences at best.

 

Taxes will only climb higher, along with the cost of living, while the standard of living goes lower.

Enjoy the decline.

 


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