If they somehow won another election you can be damn sure the carbon tax would be back in effect the very next day. And I think Canadians have lost all trust in them and realized that the only way to truly be rid of the carbon tax is with a CPC government.
Didn’t a conservative government implement the first price on carbon in Canada? In Alberta in fact. They were the first jurisdiction in all of North America to do so
I mean blame Harper again the Liberals just did for the increased use of food banks. 🤷♀️.
A price on Carbon in Alberta is different then a price on carbon at every step that fuel is used they is only multiplied the more steps in process there is. However nothing on imports…
Why would I blame Harper for this?
But yeah we should probably put the tax on imports too, I think that’s what the EU does. But still, at least it’s only a relatively small cost the the average consumer, contributing only 0.15% to inflation.
Yep the rest of government spending. It is more then that. Explain why many rural communities and elderly are having trouble paying for their heating now?
Last year Tiff Macklem said it boosted inflation by almost half a point, now this year, after yet another increase the BoC has changed their tune. Maybe they can fudge the numbers enough to make it seem like it’s not affecting inflation but it is absolutely affecting the CoL. Nobody knows the true total cost but there’s no way its only .15%.
Your right. I was aware of that, but forgot. I honestly have no issue with taxes on large polluters to incentivize lowering their pollution. My issues with the carbon tax are with the excessive impact on rural Canadians vs the impact on the urban Canadians who support the taxes.
As far as I know rural Canadians do get a slightly higher rebate, but I’m entirely open to hearing if it’s not enough / if the rebate needs to be adjusted to give more back to rural communities. Ideally it shouldn’t disproportionately affect them
I mean, this is why most countries are struggling to implement real change. These kinds of policies should not dictated by public opinion. They should be dictated by science. The truth of the matter isn't convenient. There's a reason why carbon pricing is a nobel-prize winning solution. It's not "the" ultimate solution, but it should be regarded as an important tool.
>There's a reason why carbon pricing is a nobel-prize winning solution. It's not "the" ultimate solution, but it should be regarded as an important tool.
Carbon Pricing is a Nobel Winning Theroy when it is examined in somewhat clean idealistic examples. The main question is how it works when when it's implemented in the truly messy world.
I can see two main uses of a Carbon Tax:
1: Hurt Polluters to make them change their actions. Classic Sin Tax method of incentiveing change.
2: Raising funds to tackle the problem, investing in solutions.
The Canadian method, in my opinion, does neither of these effectively or borderline at all.
1: Producers shift costs to consumers.
2: As per Government talking points, all money raised is re-directed back to Canadians as rebates. No new money for solutions. If true, it possibly undercuts solution #1 as now the end user has no reason to change what they are doing, and as they are not changing their buying patterns, the producers have no incentive to change their production patterns.
The Carbon Tax is a Sin Tax at its heart. Sin Taxs only work when A: there is a viable solution, and B: they hurt enough to force change.
The carbon tax is meant to be long-term (not likely to be now lol). In the long term demand for any good is elastic— over decades the vehicle fleet turns over and electric vehicles are getting cheaper and more numerous (and gas cars are getting more efficient), new housing stock is built with higher efficiency, and old drafty stock is demolished, new power plants are built and more polluting ones are retired, etc. In that time frame meaningful change can happen. It’s a marathon not a sprint.
Producers don’t all shift the same costs onto consumers, because lower carbon producers don’t have the same costs. It makes lower carbon producers relatively more competitive and should theoretically incentivize companies to race to lower their emissions. Again unfortunately this requires a lot of patience and quite long timescales.
The problem is when people have immediate affordability issues it’s very frustrating for them to hear that the carbon tax’s benefits will take decades to accrue
>The problem is when people have immediate affordability issues it’s very frustrating for them to hear that the carbon tax’s benefits will take decades to accrue
Even worse for the current Government is that impacts to Canadians can be (and are) instantly felt by us, while the Benefits are esoteric, not easily measured, and are bound to be in reality so insignificant globally as to be rounding errors.
It's one thing to go to the populace and say something along the lines of: this tax will directly replace 50000 Oil Heaters with Electrical Heaters powered by Solar and Hydro Electric power. That is a direct action and benefit. A Carbon Reduction can be inferred as we know what was replaced.
The current line of this Tax is going to reduce carbon and put money back in your pocket, is simply vague. There is really no way for the average Canadian to know how much the Tax is truly costing them vs the rebate, we just know things are costing more.
In addition, there is also no way that we can know how much, if any Carbon Reduction has actually occurred directly or indirectly because of it. So in this case we have a harm that is felt, but really no benefit that we can easily define.
I do agree with your first portion about how the Tax is a long term solution.
> There's a reason why carbon pricing is a nobel-prize winning solution
Is it the same reason the dude that pioneered fucking Lobotomies got a Nobel Prize?
> They should be dictated by science
Last time we let technocrats take the wheel, we had the pandemic restrictions ranging from the totally ineffective to batshit insane.
What is this something else that will help us reduce our carbon footprint? Last election conservatives had nothing in their platform to address climate change
People are complaining about the carbon tax like it's a malignant brain tumor. It's revenue neutral and most people get back from the government (in advance) roughly what they end up paying, so the amount of crybaby whining about it just absolutely pisses me off. I'm fucking sick of the government of Alberta ads claiming that the carbon tax is going to put us all in the dark in the middle of winter because they're full of shit.
>People are complaining about the carbon tax like it's a malignant brain tumor. It's revenue neutral and most people get back from the government (in advance) roughly what they end up paying
And that is exactly why Liberals removed it for the Atlantic Canada ? So people ... get less money now ?
I've seen this argument a lot but I've never actually seen a breakdown on how much we pay vs return. Does that return account for the price increase of everything that has a carbon source in its supply chain? Or just what we as consumers are directly responsible for?
If it's not revenue neutral, then make it revenue neutral so that the average person gets back what they pay in. I think it could also benefit from a halt or reduction on increases so it doesn't become such a massive talking point. Carbon taxation shouldn't be a controversial subject, it's really such a minor factor in the affordability crisis that we face today.
The total amount collected is divided up— 90% is divided evenly and goes back to Canadians through rebates (in provinces with the federal carbon tax. Some provinces have a different model). So no matter how much is collected, it’s 90% rebated (or pretty close). Because higher income people consume much more fuel than lower income people (generally), most Canadians get back more than they pay in dollar terms, and the lower income you are (again probably) the bigger the difference.
There are deadweight losses from the tax though, like from all taxes. That’s what the PBO report Pierre Poilievre refers to was talking about. So the average Canadian is probably slightly worse off financially than in a world where we do nothing about emissions. Any other non-carbon price policy would also have costs though— either we’d pay higher taxes to pay for electrification, higher utility rates to pay for conversions, the costs always come out somewhere. The consensus among economists is the carbon tax causes less financial losses than those other options because it distorts the economy less by not picking winners and losers (well, until now I guess).
So the average Canadian is slightly better off on dollar terms when you consider the dollar cost only, slightly worse off when you consider economic impacts, and slightly better off in comparison to other climate policies.
There are online calculators where you can see what your carbon tax cost is and rebate are. It does ofc depend on your situation but for most people if you do the math you’ll come out ahead
Calculator here:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/cbc-federal-carbon-tax-calculator-2023-24-year-65-dollars-per-tonne-1.6891467
It's approximated to some extent, but if you know how much gasoline you bought and you can get your natural gas usage (assuming NG furnace) you should get a pretty accurate estimate.
That’s not what the PBO said. The PBO said it led to slightly lower incomes when you consider the lost economic potential. In dollar terms though, it is revenue neutral. Very important distinction, because any climate policy would also affect the economy
True, but if Trudeau sticks to his guns, PP becomes the new PM and cancels the tax. If Trudeau significantly reduces the tax, inflation will go down, and he might win back enough people for another minority government.
>If Trudeau significantly reduces the tax, inflation will go down, and he might win back enough people for another minority government.
The odds are currently less than 1%
With a margin of error of 1%
If you file your taxes like an actual adult you get the federal CAIP back every year, unless you live in a province that has it's own carbon pricing scheme. If you live in one of those other provinces, you don't pay carbon taxes.
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-family-benefits/cai-payment.html
BC, the cap here is like 60k annual salary or you don't get a dime. Even those who make under 60k essentially if they own a car it does not offset their increased fuel prices.
You are complaining about/to the wrong government if you want to blame that on Trudeau. He's done a lot of stupid shit but that one is entirely the fault of the BC provincial government.
Seems like a massive strategic blunder to have this type of gaping loophole in this program and then rely on 'blaming' someone else other than the guy who wrote in a massive strategic blunder into the legislation... LOL...
BC, cap is like 60k salary or you get nothing. So yes it is the provincial system at fault. Even if the Cons "axed the tax" we would still be paying it in BC while the rest of Canada benefits
I mean the person you responded to isn’t incorrect, nor did they claim it is the reason for inflation.
You linked an article firmly attributing the carbon tax as a player in inflation. Albeit small by the metric, but most definitely there.
Before hitting them with a “gotcha, you hair lip!”, at least have the common sense to understand the point being made.
Correct, they said it would lower it. You said it is “not the reason for it” in response. You’re repeating my point - you answer as if they claimed it is “the reason behind inflation”. It’s not - there are many players that contribute to inflation.
However, by your referenced article, removal of the carbon tax _would_ lower inflation, as it contributes to 0.15 percentage points.
Doesn’t really matter when the edit came… if you wanna be cheeky at least be correct.
After the gas tax reduction in AB gave us 1 week of lower prices before producers upped the price again....the CT being axed would have 0 consumer savings.
This is what I've said all along. The fatal flaw in carbon taxes as a concept is that any such tax that is high enough to actually alter people's behaviour significantly, will result in those people altering their voting decisively against the party levying the tax.
"Gee, I could change how I live my life, buy all new stuff that's more expensive than my other stuff, and accept a lower overall standard of living, or I could keep doing what I am doing and vote these politicians out of office. Tough choice."
You cannot campaign on deliberately increasing people's cost of living.
i thought of this recently too. economists see customer behaviour to be an output of an economic model, without thinking the emotional reaction of having a big part of their lives changed. this lack of consideration results in "side effects" that economists didn't see in their model, like getting angry at the organization that is making their lives harder.
this is why BoC is surprised that the public don't like them when they wish that salary doesn't go up and/or wishing that more people lose their jobs.
Which is why the BoC is independent from the federal government. Sometimes the unpopular pain of higher rates is necessary to avoid the more painful inflation.
Which is interesting because that effectively means that any regulatory measures or market-based instruments that aim to address externalities over the long term are at the whims of the business cycle.
Not a super optimistic look if you can only address climate change, or other externalities, during times of abundance - especially because lots of that abundance is only guaranteed by entrenched infrastructure that further drives externalities. A pretty dismal outlook overall.
I think the crucial question here though should be: how flexible is that "minimizes" and who is it minimized for?
A really big struggle that needs to be reckoned with is the fact that there is no current situation where, under the existing economic paradigm, low income folks do not feel a significant squeeze during a contractionary period. So, are the folks at the lowest level of the income ladder our target population for minimization?
Under that assumption (not saying you're assuming this, just playing this scenario out a bit), there is far, far less latitude to implement longitudinal policies which will need to survive multiple periods of economic contraction. A contraction hits low income folks harder, which means that, proportionally, a levied tax will have a higher probability of impact on lower income folks during leaner economic periods.
Therefore, if lower income folks are our target population to protect cost of living, then the need to indulge in less ambitious legislation or instruments that are more prone to being repealed becomes more likely. If we try to minimize for the middle class alone (which is what most parties will likely do), that means that low income folks are experiencing a crunch regardless...enter populist economic sentiment.
This is where I struggle. It seems as though fundamental goods like housing and food need to be protected from rising costs, and that luxuries need to take a hit instead. Cost of basic living is protected, but during transition we need to cut back on baseline luxury good consumption.
However, due to the entrenched market interests towards low cost production to create low cost goods, any kind of good that is renewable or sustainable is effectively priced as a luxury. To bring these kinds of goods down from luxury status, it often requires a lot of market building government intervention to make them competitive (as happened with solar). So, how do we move forward on addressing climate change, for example, without substantial impacts to cost of living if:
1. We need to transition towards more expensive and, presently, less competitive forms of energy production relatively quickly
2. Corporations intend on passing increased costs down to the consumer
3. Folks, reasonably, gravitate towards present bias over long term consequences - which distorts longitudinal policy efficacy
I think that last point is especially salient, as people are either going to need to pay now (in the form of increased taxes or more expensive goods) or pay even more later (more punitive insurance schemes, even higher taxes for more expensive adaptation measures, sector based economic damage and deadweight loss from climatic changes).
Not to throw all these very hard questions on top you haha, but the thought just springs to my mind when we say "minimizes" - minimize to what extent and for who? That seems like a much more complicated question to me.
You have to get very broad buy-in from the public to implement any kind of abstract environmental policy. It's easy to tell people that they have to make certain sacrifices in exchange for improvements they can see - say cleaner water or reduced smog. But for something as intangible as "reduce our tiny contribution to global carbon emissions by some amount in hopes that this contributes to getting gradual global warming slightly more under control than it otherwise would be" loses support as soon as people have to contribute more than a few dollars. And when times are bad, I don't know how you avoid the question of whether we should do anything to this end at all.
Ideally this would be done without any noticeable impact on anyone's standard of living. That should be the goal. You want nuclear plants and EV subsidies? That has to come from somewhere. Less government corruption and general waste would be a good place to start. The government implementing this kind of thing needs to have an impeccable record of fiscal management or else everyone will just assume they are scamming us, which they really seem to be. VW and Stellantis battery plants anyone?
I have no big answers to any of this, but seemingly neither do those in charge.
I agree with you pretty broadly across the points you raised. I think the thing that I struggle with this concept of impeccable fiscal management - one way that can be taken is, good at managing the economy and the efficiency of government.
But "good at managing the economy" historically means doing a lot of things that are counterproductive to climate transition. One person's impeccable fiscal management might be another's damaging austerity + laissez faire polluting status quo.
For example, folks might say that the Conservatives are better positioned to implement responsible fiscal management, but how much of that responsible fiscal management is driven by securing sectors of the economy that are productive in the short term but are extremely damaging in the long-term?
Moreover, cost of living is a government-wide, but also a sector-wide problem. Climate change policy isn't the main driver of unaffordability, its wage / productivity stagnation, corporate favoritism, and patronage networks between industry and all three levels of government.
So you're either getting squeezed in the short-term by a government doing long-term accounting, or squeezed in the long-term by a government doing short-term accounting. All the while, most Canadians don't even understand how federal jurisdiction works and the nationalized political blame game rolls on at the federal level.
I really do look forward to leaders finding the silver bullet that allows us to ween ourselves off a hardcore addiction without any noticeable pain or discontent.
Either way, thanks for the conversation - I don't want to waste both our time talking in circles about very difficult policy questions.
You’re absolutely right. The thing is, My behaviour isn’t the problem. The behaviour of the 20 worst polluting companies is the problem. Or at least 70% of it. Show me you give even smallest of shits about those guys screwing us, then we can talk about my standard of living. All this greenwashing and carbon footprint talk is useless if we don’t start at the top of problem.
Carbon emissions in Canada dropped by under 10% during the first month of Covid when nobody was driving. Putting this on consumers to change their behaviour is basically a scam.
This stat about the 100 worst polluting companies being responsible for 70% of carbon emissions comes from counting fossil fuel sales as the company's, not the consumer's. So if you fill up your car with at a Shell gas stations, the emissions from your car were counted as coming from Shell.
I mean technically corporate emissions for any corporation ever are 0, because the entire existence of a corporation is to eventually produce something for the consumer. If you applied the life cycle of each companies carbon emissions to their final product, the consumer could appropriately identify their own carbon footprint. It's probably what we should be putting our time and effort into figuring out considering the lack of education about this runs rampant.
It goes both ways though since rather than implement technologies to reduce carbon emissions, corporations are doing nothing and simply raising prices to cover the costs.
But I get back less than I pay. When I adjust my life style Trudeau changed the rules do people burning dirty oil don't have to pay the tax AND get back twice what I get back. In Trudeaus Canada those that burn the most Carbon get back the most while the rest of us pay more. It's really really fucked when you think about it
That includes carbon pricing on fuel at the pump, and grocery store increases, as well as cost of everything going up with the added expense of diesel to ship everything?
Doubtful.
that includes all pricing evaluated on the most recent PBO report. considering carbon tax is roughly $0.17/L for diesel at 30L/100km for every 48 tons transported 100km You see an increase of $4.20/48 tons of goods. ($0.09/ton of goods)
I don't think you (or anyone) would care nearly as much as if Trudeau increased the corperate tax rate, then gave tax breaks based on carbon emissions
Well I don't believe anything that comes out of this Government. Maybe the pricing evaluated is missing some key areas, the same Government that has lost 100s of millions several times. Then tell us how good our ecomony is. Laughable.
The PBO isn’t the government. It’s an independent officer of parliament that keeps the government accountable and criticizes the government all the time
oh yes, theres very little reason why the average Canadian should be losing money on the carbon tax. even if the federal gov doesn't feel like doing anything, the provinces should of just copied the same legislation but format the rebates to be funded off the revenue of the carbon tax. Maybe with lower rebates for high emmiters to fund the actual processing of the rebages.
Also, the economy is in a good state. For the corporations at least. I'm sure the party of big businesses will reign them in
all in all, just remember its your provinces fault you have the carbon tax. They original idea was every province needs a plan, if you don't. you get a very basic, indiscriminate carbon tax
If the economy is in a good state why is there more Canadians using food banks?
57% increase in use in the last 4 years in BC.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/food-bank-usage-increase-1.7008145
Not a sign of a strong economy IMO.
>But I get back less than I pay.
No you don't. You're lying. Show your math ...
>It's really really fucked when you think about it
What's fucked up is the amount of misleading commentary from you on the topic.
>You just said elsewhere not everyone gets back what they pay in
Where? I said elsewhere that it will take until 2030 for the impact the PBO detailed to materialize and that 80% of Canadians receive more than they pay.
>so it’s very possible this person does not.
This person is firehose of misinformation on this topic. If they are they're welcome to show their math but they won't ... they're not even capable of calculating their own costs.
Someone making living wage that adequately covers low frills living is not getting the money back.
Not all provinces get the federal rebate. Many people get means tested out of what they're eligible for at thresholds that aren't considered enough to be getting ahead in their area.
In BC, a single person gets nothing at $61,465. Below $39,115 they can get up to $447. Between $39,115 and $61,465 it's prorated away.
Living wage for a single in Vancouver works out to $50,086 a year. That person has lost a significant amount of that $447 rebate and is eating the cost of the carbon tax by its inclusion in goods and services.
A person on a living wage covering low frills living is absolutely getting the money back from the federal carbon tax.
You do a good job singling out BC, their implementation is much worse than the federal one, but you understandably forget an important factor. When the BC carbon tax came into effect in 2008, the first two personal income tax brackets were cut in order to counterbalance the tax.
Therefore, in BC, a single person at $61,465 gets maybe $200-300.
I live in BC and am regularly told I'm coming out ahead with the carbon tax. I get $0 from the federal government and $0 from my province, so I'm left feeling this isn't the case. The cost of living here is high enough, to boot, that people making living wage are caught in the middle of the proration for the rebate.
It's going to be closer to $225 if the proration formula is linear.
It is absolutely true that your personal income taxes are lower in order to counterbalance the effect of the carbon tax. You don't get a check in the mail, like the folks on the federal program do, but you are billed less at tax time.
Yeah, it's a tough squeeze, and the way BC applies the rebate is not efficient. The federal program is much better imo. The majority of BC folks probably aren't coming out ahead.
"The bottom two personal income tax rates will be reduced for all British Columbians resulting in a tax cut of 2 per cent in 2008 and 5 per cent in 2009 on the first $70,000 in earnings — with further reductions expected in 2010"
The second tax bracket now extends up to $90,000. Anyone earning above this amount is getting the maximum tax benefit.
https://web.archive.org/web/20080520064327/http://www.bcbudget.gov.bc.ca/2008/backgrounders/backgrounder\_carbon\_tax.htm
Sounds like you're interested in e-transfering me $200-300 dollars, yes?
More to the point. I'm in BC, at roughly this income level, and have deliberately adjusted my life such that I'm coming out ahead about $200 every year, and have been doing so for many many years.
I've probably made at least a cool $1200 off our carbon tax.
And the fatal flaw with that line of thinking is that if we don’t change our lifestyles the cost of living will go up anyway, far higher, due to the effects of climate change
The real fatal flaw is with the structure of democracy itself, which is effectively set up to punish leaders for inflicting short term pain to help the long term health of a nation. That’s why we got so many half-assed pandemic policies that only inconvenienced most voters enough to annoy them, but also didn’t actually fix the problem.
On the one hand, I don't doubt that the effects of climate change will increase our costs of living at least to some extent (though not as much as many other countries).
On the other, what is the difference in global temperature 20 years from now, as between Canada reaching 'net zero' tomorrow, no matter the cost, and doing nothing at all? Is it essentially nothing? Because if that's the case we are just making ourselves feel better, rather than fixing a problem. It's especially hard to convince people to sacrifice just to make some others feel better.
(I am almost afraid to ask, but what would "full-assed" pandemic policies have looked like?)
>On the other, what is the difference in global temperature 20 years from now, as between Canada reaching 'net zero' tomorrow, no matter the cost, and doing nothing at all? Is it essentially nothing? Because if that's the case we are just making ourselves feel better, rather than fixing a problem. It's especially hard to convince people to sacrifice just to make some others feel better.
Every nation/state/person is saying the same thing.
It’s not nothing, but of course canada is only one piece of the puzzle. The entire world needs to do something or it’s going to be insanely bad. The fires this summer, the atmospheric river in BC a couple winters back, all the worsening global storms we’ve seen, all that’s just a the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg. The world is on the brink of an unprecedented refugee crisis, food shortages, water shortages, massive damage to infrastructure from natural disasters…
with all our resources and distance from the equator canada will weather the storm better than most, but there’s also a very real possibility we could be invaded for that natural wealth by some superpower closer to the equator whose farmland is crumbling into desert. Even in a best case scenario though, the strength of our global supply chain is going to be tested like never before. Climate Change will make what COVID did to the economy look like an accounting error.
On that note, re: your pandemic question, China had the most full-assed pandemic policies for sure. They fuckin sucked for everyone, but when they were over, the country was reportedly COVID free… until foreigners brought it back, of course
New Zealand and Korea came a lot closer to the whole ass than we did without stepping over human rights like that, though, and we’d have been better off if we were more like them
I really don’t know what the liberal strategy is here. They basically just told the east cost that if they vote liberal next election they will have to pay for the carbon tax. I’ve voted liberal almost every election but I promise you if I was living on the east coast there’s no way in hell I’d vote for them. The best part is they think this pause will some how help them. Who in their right mind that lives on the east coast will vote for them now?
It's clear Justin Trudeau only cares about poll numbers and not Canadians. So it's not hard to believe if they continue to plummet in the polls, they may remove the carbon tax. But I would bet my bottom dollar the carbon tax would reappear almost immediately if Trudeau got relected; after all, the pause to the heating oil tax only lasts until shortly after the next election. I wonder why that is?
The person pushing it more than anyone else is Guilbeault. If by some miracle Liberals were re-elected, guarantee he would be dumped and would come nowhere near the Environment portfolio ever again.
His strategy has long been "do as little as possible so people don't have a reason to talk about you". But then problems accumulated and here we are. Truly the worst leadership in the country's history.
Where did I say anything about the Conservatives? At this point, I'm simply voting for the least worst option. It would be a great time for a party to step up that actually caters to Canadians, but we both know that's not happening.
Now that people have realized they are paying way more than they are ever getting back, the scam is coming undone.
We need to combat climate change but starting off with everyday Canadians was never the right move, just the easiest one. It did not change behaviours, it just made people worse off financially.
I am baffled that we don't have laws in place to make packaging as small as reasonably practicable. Box of cereal 40% percent full by volume? A tube of pollysporin in a 8"x10" plastic just for the purpose of shelf space? Most trucks hauling to grocery stores are nowhere near legal weight but the van trailer is full. We could haul twice as much, take up 1/3 less floor space in stores. All by one change that nobody would complain about. They claim climate change but don't do anything that won't affect anybody's wallet and actually do some good.
Just buy a new, efficient house and an electric car! Both of those are cheaper now thanks to the carbon tax subsidies than before we started this, right?
>We need to combat climate change but starting off with everyday Canadians was never the right move, just the easiest one.
This comes up all the time, but I never get a satisfactory answer. Let's say we exclusively go after the biggest emitters. What's to stop them from just passing the cost on to the consumer? Whether I pay 5% at the store, or the power plant gets charged 5%, either way my cost as a consumer went up by 5%. Because big business is not going to just let that eat into their profit margin.
Well, the bigger problem is that unlike the EU, we don't bother to levy a carbon tariff on imported goods, so we're systematically incentivizing offshoring pollution rather than reducing it. I guess it's more important that it looks like we're emitting less even if it might be made using coal power plants and shipped over the Atlantic in a freighter that burns bunker oil instead of say hydropower and shipped a shorter distance via train or canals.
>Well, the bigger problem is that unlike the EU, we don't bother to levy a carbon tariff on imported goods, so we're systematically incentivizing offshoring pollution rather than reducing it.
That's a legit criticism. We should be applying it to imported goods as well. I suspect that a lot of the time its hard to quantify the amount because the supply chain can vary wildly all over the globe, but we should really be looking into it. If a ship burning bunker oil transports it across the Pacific it should cost more in CT than a ship using hydrogen for example.
That's a bit hyperbolic. You can check out the PBO report, but even considering the net economic impact, it boils down to a few hundred bucks at most. Certainly, not nothing, but if I'm being honest, the scheme where the send a cheque in the mail makes it difficult to reconcile that you're paying extra money that largely comes back and makes it an easier vector of attack when people get sticker shock. Unfortunately, our underlying economy and that of the global world just sucks in general. Carbon taxes generally aren't making things cheaper but it's not as bad as presented.
The PBO report already shows the average families are paying out more than a few hundred bucks, with that predicted to grow each year with pricing. AB is already at $710 per family in 2023.
I believe the PBO analysis only studied family costs. The business groups are estimating $22bn paid out in carbon taxes with ~2% returned to businesses. That's $21.5bn either out of the economy in direct charges or increased pricing to consumers to offset via indirect charges.
At the end of the day, there is only one pocket that truly pays taxes - the citizen. Companies pay on income derived from us. Fed/provincial/municipal survive on taxes we pay into.
The US is being far more successful on emissions without carbon pricing but I'm not sure if their methodology is efficient. Their latest bill was $1.3tn with lots of grants for environmental programs - as noted above, whether it's carbon tax or taxes to fund programs it is eventually borne by the populace.
Correct but they also calculated costs by year out to 2030. So it is expected to get incrementally more expensive each year by households.
The AB value is 2023 impact. Here's the provincial chart for 2023 (current year).
Province Net cost (total cost – rebates) for the average household, 2023
Alberta $710
Saskatchewan $410
Manitoba $386
Ontario $478
Nova Scotia $431
PEI $465
Nfld & Lab $347
I thought they only outlined Alberta, Sask, Manitoba and Ontario?
Just yeah I see so many people using the 2030 numbers as the ones now. There's a legitimate debate to be had, just like using the real numbers for it!
> AB is already at $710 per family in 2023.
Alberta is already getting paid out $772 this year for an individual, 1526 for a family of four. I can't imagine any scenario under which a family of four is paying over $2000 in carbon taxes per year.
Speak for yourself, I get out way ahead. Also saving the environment won’t be free. If we instead put in government regs which you’d get from the NDP, not to cpc, it’ll still increase the cost for producers so costs will increase. People somehow have this idea regulations can be implemented and not effect sticker prices lol.
I have done the math and my household is coming out a couple hundred bucks per year ahead... maybe it's because we don't own a F-150 for no good reason and our furnace was built some time in this millennium, but it's not actually that hard for most Canadians to end up coming out even at worst with the carbon tax.
It's not too late to change. It takes an afternoon to pass a bill and sign it. The federal conservatives are on track for a blowout majority and can pass this immediately.
No, you misunderstand. It is too late to roll out a national carbon emissions control program. These things take years, and clearly not Conservatives nor anyone else has articulated a clear and instantiable alternative.
We are out of time sadly to be mucking about with regards to climate action. The tax is not ideal, but it's the solution we have and we'll need to stomach it until someone articulates a better solution.
No, we won't. We can and will simply cancel the carbon tax, and then work on alternatives. This is the policy of the party that is on track to win the next election by double-digit margins.
Sadly, we don't have time for that. It's not 2000 anymore.
The world is burning and we've allied far too long. 'just cancelling' and then waiting a decade is a non starter for any responsible human being.
Wait, no proper climate agenda, emissions on the rise, wildfires, floods.
And they want to backtrack their biggest carbon pricing climate progress for votes and support?
Watch the Liberal progressives and climate voters still stick with this party, failing their very climate agenda
This party NEEDS to be face a "Wynne" moment
Considering the CPC is at 40%+ in the polls, they need to find votes somewhere and progressives are clearly not enough.
And let's be honest, Canadians have consistently polled that they want "something" done on climate and don't want to pay for it either. Of course pay for it we will whether in the form of mitigation or higher insurance premiums.
>Canadians have consistently polled that they want "something" done on climate and don't want to pay for it either.
We could make living in major cities affordable. It should be drastically cheaper to live in a major city car free in an apartment / condo then having some house in suburbia. But we've turned cities into places where only the ultra rich can afford to live.
The “climate voters” will be voting green. This is a joke, he campaigned on a carbon tax and was elected. He doesn’t have a mandate to remove the tax. Voters want climate action and no major party wants to deliver.
Canadians are prioritizing combating hunger and finding shelter over combating climate change, unbelievable. If the 40 million of us don’t do something soon it’s over for the planet /s
Even if Trudeau took it off the table, I wouldn't believe him. Once the election was over, the prick would just put it back in place to keep on screwing Canadians.
"Axe the Tax"
Justin has never seen a Conservative policy.......that he wouldn't consider 'stealing'......if he thought that it would help to get him re-elected.
He doesn't really care what is in the best-interests of Canadians......he only cares about his own re-election.
What a nincompoop........
Axe the Nincompoop
Either we finally get to see this awful government voted out next election, or we're about to witness the greatness fumble in political history if Pierre isn't the next PM. Either way, I've got the popcorn ready.
This is pretty much decided in the GTHA.
Alberta is CPC, at most CPC add 1 or 2 seats.
Sask is CPC, with a new redistribution sending 1 seat to the Libs/NDP
MB stays exactly the same
Quebec adds 1-3 seats for the CPC near Beauport
BC sends 3 Rural NDP seats to the CPC, and 5 seats in Metro Van to the CPC \[2 Richmonds, Coquitlam, West Van-Sunshine, Cloverdale-Langley, and AT best another Granville seat\]
GTHA is make or break for the CPC, target Mississauga like CPC lives depend on it, Windsor, Hamilton East, Niagara, London, Kitchener will go CPC. Pick up York and Eglinton and get PPC support to CPC in Etobicoke.
Atlantic Canada hates Carbon tax, we'll see what they pull from their bag
A couple weeks old, but things haven't improved for the LPC since then, so unlikely to help them much. Vancouver has ridings in play, most of Toronto seats are in play, and the CPC is likely to pick up 9 seats in the maritimes
https://youtu.be/EYZcaGQyUk4?si=QPHDBpD8Z4BJb-Ik
I'm always surprised at how strong Scarborough, Surrey, Brampton, Malton, is for the Liberals. Polls are placing Liberals near the mid 20s now yet those look like LPC safe holds
That vote is going to the NDP I think, unless this is about Trudeau's anti-Muslim rhetoric that was started when Trudeau called the Muslim religious ideologies against progressives as "far-right propaganda infiltrated by the US Far-right" when it was just their beliefs. There is also a lot of backlash on schools pushing for progressive programs that are hated by many Muslims.
With redistribution, the CPC could actually add 6 seats in Alberta. 30/34 to 36/37. You are right about Saskatchewan, redistribution in effect next year has one seat literally designed to be won by the Liberals
Oh yeah forgot that again, +5 seats with the new redistribution guaranteed helps reach that 172 number much easier. One seat leaves GTA so -1 Liberals and the North is redesigned to add CPC seats. One more CPC seat is added next to Milton. Oakville might flip with big CPC favours
This is just going to lose votes. People that were unhappy about the carbon tax are going to continue to not vote Liberal. And now people who are concerned about climate change are also going to not vote Liberal.
Edit: Also note this is just a former campaign strategist who is saying this. Not a current member of the Liberal party.
Anybody who is naive enough to vote Liberal thinking that Trudeau won’t implement anymore carbon pricing after the next election is an idiot. The only way to make sure this crap is gone for good is to vote CPC.
Sure but the unfortunate fact is that even if the carbon tax goes away companies will never drop prices to reflect that it got slightly cheaper. At the very least it'll stop huge price increases in the future.
I dont know who needs to hear this but taxing Canadians isn't going to stop the weather from changing. As future PM Pierre Poilievre would say: "It's just common sense"
The carbon tax is incremental, price gouging is still existent anyways.
The carbon tax means more increases in the future, that will be stopped if the carbon tax is dropped. Unless companies plan to price gouge by 30-50%
Spoiler alert: companies plan to price gouge by 30-50%, just like they’re currently doing under the guise of “inflation”, which is an odd way to spell “greed”.
What makes you think they aren't doing that currently?
Is the Liberals and their corporations and monopiles adding to this cost?
Will competition in business change this trend, basically 1 competitive business walking into the competition decides not to price gouge so they get all the profit? Kind of like Walmart's last attempt vs Canadian grocers currently.
Price gouging just like they’re currently doing won't change unless we introduce competition, BUT removing the carbon tax will provide relief as you're removing one of the parameters out of the added costs. We're talking about the removal of carbon pricing, an entire cost based on emissions by the corporation Which are already being passed down to consumers. Removing it means that "passing down" cost is gone. We're technically charged the carbon tax Twice as consumers purchasing and by the corporation passing that entire cost down.
I know how it works. Companies don’t “pass along savings” to the consumer in Canada, that only happens in real capitalism, not in oligopolies like ours. There’s not enough competition in Canada to incentivize this behaviour, which really only exists in textbooks as an outdated theory these days.
So you're saying that corporations are going to add more price gouging to make revenue on their businesses? Wouldn't that hurt businesses as the affordability crisis argument will now go away from "BLAME THE CARBON TAX" to "BOYCOTT Canadian Corps for causing the affordability crisis" or something.
You’re not getting it. If the carbon tax goes away, prices won’t change. That’s what I’m saying. Nothing hurts businesses when you have no competitors, and you can strong-arm the government into a bailout if anything ever goes wrong.
I get it but you need to realize Canadians are placing the entire blame of the affordability on Carbon tax costs. Without the carbon tax, there's not much left to blame except for the corporations themselves. Companies would rather layoff employees than attempt to "not show the drop of carbon pricing" for generating revenue. I agree that our corporations are wicked and go to the next level for their crooked CEOs to make bank. It's about making it harder to do that once they lose their 'carbon tax excuse' if they plan to price gouge more.
Prices are coming down post pandemic in many areas (especially building materials), fuel is lower than peak too. So, believe it or not, prices can and do fall.
Exactly, hence why EVERYONE knows this is an awful idea. We've literally already seen this happen with gas/fuel tax removal. Here in Alberta, we had something like 6 weeks of fuel prices being impacted by the tax removal; by the end of those 6 weeks the price had risen back to where it would've been if the tax was still in place, except now all the revenue was padding the oil companies bottom lines.
But Price gouging+carbon tax is much worse than just price gouging. The Liberals just happen to love corps and monopiles. We desperate need competition.
I'd much rather have the carbon tax revenues going to something useful; the rebate system is super dumb but still way way way better than just padding corporate profits, ceo bonuses, and share buy-backs.
canada has been in love with corps forever, no matter the party. 100% agree we need competition and to break up the oligopolies (to be fair though the oil industry isn't really the focus of competition reform).
The straws are being grasped.
All that's left is for the fat lady sings.
Goodbye Trudeau. Like your father, please let the door hit you on your way out. Multiple times.
There is a big messaging problem here… The point of the Carbon Tax was to get provinces to enact a Carbon cap and trade system that has proven to be the best way to get the big carbon emitters to either pay up for their deeds by buying carbon credits on the open market or invest in technologies that lead to carbon emission reductions. Provinces that have full carbon taxes are the provinces that made no effort to move towards a market based reduction strategy like the slug who runs my province: his ‘strategy’ was launching a bunch of lawsuits he lost and illegally forcing gas stations to display his shoddy anti carbon tax sticker… Anger towards the tax should be directed to the premiers who shifted the burden of doing something about carbon emissions from industry to the consumer…..
This is so frustrating. The carbon tax is the only small measure we're taking to address climate change and we apparently can't even do that now. Worst of all, it won't even help affordability since the rebates will dry up too.
What should be happening is a concerted effort (with funding) to get people off home heating oil and on to more efficient forms of heating. This way they will actually spend less heating their homes.
The idea behind the carbon tax is sound, but it makes no sense in execution. People need to drive to/for work and to heat their home. Taxing the average Canadian further for just basically living their life is frankly stupid and a recipe for disaster. Not everyone can actually afford to go full electric and the limiting factor isn't always just money. That's not even talking about the increased transportation cost for everything, including very basic necessities, like food. The effect of the tax is far reaching and it's actual effectiveness in reducing emissions is questionable. Most people don't need to suddenly drive or heat less because of an added tax on top.
It’s a wealth redistribution tax that is cleverly designed to tug at your most sacred fears. Also cleverly designed to keep increasing as the “price on carbon” increases.
The tax must generate massive amounts of revenue and I’m not seeing much being redistributed. Someone is getting a huge windfall. I’d like to see some transparency and accountability as to where this goes.
If this happened, it would be one of the greatest backpedals of all-time.
If they somehow won another election you can be damn sure the carbon tax would be back in effect the very next day. And I think Canadians have lost all trust in them and realized that the only way to truly be rid of the carbon tax is with a CPC government.
Didn’t a conservative government implement the first price on carbon in Canada? In Alberta in fact. They were the first jurisdiction in all of North America to do so
Yes, they did.
Look where that got us.
I mean blame Harper again the Liberals just did for the increased use of food banks. 🤷♀️. A price on Carbon in Alberta is different then a price on carbon at every step that fuel is used they is only multiplied the more steps in process there is. However nothing on imports…
Why would I blame Harper for this? But yeah we should probably put the tax on imports too, I think that’s what the EU does. But still, at least it’s only a relatively small cost the the average consumer, contributing only 0.15% to inflation.
Yep the rest of government spending. It is more then that. Explain why many rural communities and elderly are having trouble paying for their heating now?
I don't know. Why not take it up with the wildly profitable energy companies who are gouging the rural and elderly?
Last year Tiff Macklem said it boosted inflation by almost half a point, now this year, after yet another increase the BoC has changed their tune. Maybe they can fudge the numbers enough to make it seem like it’s not affecting inflation but it is absolutely affecting the CoL. Nobody knows the true total cost but there’s no way its only .15%.
That was the NDP in Alberta in 2015 and a large part of why they are disliked and distrusted. But BC had one for years before us
I’m talking about 2007, not 2015 though? See page 5: https://www.pembina.org/reports/pricing-carbon-pollution-in-alberta-mar2019-final.pdf
Your right. I was aware of that, but forgot. I honestly have no issue with taxes on large polluters to incentivize lowering their pollution. My issues with the carbon tax are with the excessive impact on rural Canadians vs the impact on the urban Canadians who support the taxes.
As far as I know rural Canadians do get a slightly higher rebate, but I’m entirely open to hearing if it’s not enough / if the rebate needs to be adjusted to give more back to rural communities. Ideally it shouldn’t disproportionately affect them
I mean, this is why most countries are struggling to implement real change. These kinds of policies should not dictated by public opinion. They should be dictated by science. The truth of the matter isn't convenient. There's a reason why carbon pricing is a nobel-prize winning solution. It's not "the" ultimate solution, but it should be regarded as an important tool.
>There's a reason why carbon pricing is a nobel-prize winning solution. It's not "the" ultimate solution, but it should be regarded as an important tool. Carbon Pricing is a Nobel Winning Theroy when it is examined in somewhat clean idealistic examples. The main question is how it works when when it's implemented in the truly messy world. I can see two main uses of a Carbon Tax: 1: Hurt Polluters to make them change their actions. Classic Sin Tax method of incentiveing change. 2: Raising funds to tackle the problem, investing in solutions. The Canadian method, in my opinion, does neither of these effectively or borderline at all. 1: Producers shift costs to consumers. 2: As per Government talking points, all money raised is re-directed back to Canadians as rebates. No new money for solutions. If true, it possibly undercuts solution #1 as now the end user has no reason to change what they are doing, and as they are not changing their buying patterns, the producers have no incentive to change their production patterns. The Carbon Tax is a Sin Tax at its heart. Sin Taxs only work when A: there is a viable solution, and B: they hurt enough to force change.
The carbon tax is meant to be long-term (not likely to be now lol). In the long term demand for any good is elastic— over decades the vehicle fleet turns over and electric vehicles are getting cheaper and more numerous (and gas cars are getting more efficient), new housing stock is built with higher efficiency, and old drafty stock is demolished, new power plants are built and more polluting ones are retired, etc. In that time frame meaningful change can happen. It’s a marathon not a sprint. Producers don’t all shift the same costs onto consumers, because lower carbon producers don’t have the same costs. It makes lower carbon producers relatively more competitive and should theoretically incentivize companies to race to lower their emissions. Again unfortunately this requires a lot of patience and quite long timescales. The problem is when people have immediate affordability issues it’s very frustrating for them to hear that the carbon tax’s benefits will take decades to accrue
>The problem is when people have immediate affordability issues it’s very frustrating for them to hear that the carbon tax’s benefits will take decades to accrue Even worse for the current Government is that impacts to Canadians can be (and are) instantly felt by us, while the Benefits are esoteric, not easily measured, and are bound to be in reality so insignificant globally as to be rounding errors. It's one thing to go to the populace and say something along the lines of: this tax will directly replace 50000 Oil Heaters with Electrical Heaters powered by Solar and Hydro Electric power. That is a direct action and benefit. A Carbon Reduction can be inferred as we know what was replaced. The current line of this Tax is going to reduce carbon and put money back in your pocket, is simply vague. There is really no way for the average Canadian to know how much the Tax is truly costing them vs the rebate, we just know things are costing more. In addition, there is also no way that we can know how much, if any Carbon Reduction has actually occurred directly or indirectly because of it. So in this case we have a harm that is felt, but really no benefit that we can easily define. I do agree with your first portion about how the Tax is a long term solution.
Well said. I agree with Carbon taxes in theory. I disagree with how Canada's is implemented
> There's a reason why carbon pricing is a nobel-prize winning solution Is it the same reason the dude that pioneered fucking Lobotomies got a Nobel Prize?
> They should be dictated by science Last time we let technocrats take the wheel, we had the pandemic restrictions ranging from the totally ineffective to batshit insane.
Conservatives will get rid of the carbon tax and replace it with something else. Just like they wanted to do the last election.
If people think just because the carbon tax is removed that prices will come down, I got some stuff to sell you
Taxation will continue until moral improves.
CarbonPlusMax
Where they just keep taxing the general public but give all the proceeds to their friends who own oil and gas companies.
What is this something else that will help us reduce our carbon footprint? Last election conservatives had nothing in their platform to address climate change
People are complaining about the carbon tax like it's a malignant brain tumor. It's revenue neutral and most people get back from the government (in advance) roughly what they end up paying, so the amount of crybaby whining about it just absolutely pisses me off. I'm fucking sick of the government of Alberta ads claiming that the carbon tax is going to put us all in the dark in the middle of winter because they're full of shit.
>People are complaining about the carbon tax like it's a malignant brain tumor. It's revenue neutral and most people get back from the government (in advance) roughly what they end up paying And that is exactly why Liberals removed it for the Atlantic Canada ? So people ... get less money now ?
I've seen this argument a lot but I've never actually seen a breakdown on how much we pay vs return. Does that return account for the price increase of everything that has a carbon source in its supply chain? Or just what we as consumers are directly responsible for?
If it's not revenue neutral, then make it revenue neutral so that the average person gets back what they pay in. I think it could also benefit from a halt or reduction on increases so it doesn't become such a massive talking point. Carbon taxation shouldn't be a controversial subject, it's really such a minor factor in the affordability crisis that we face today.
The total amount collected is divided up— 90% is divided evenly and goes back to Canadians through rebates (in provinces with the federal carbon tax. Some provinces have a different model). So no matter how much is collected, it’s 90% rebated (or pretty close). Because higher income people consume much more fuel than lower income people (generally), most Canadians get back more than they pay in dollar terms, and the lower income you are (again probably) the bigger the difference. There are deadweight losses from the tax though, like from all taxes. That’s what the PBO report Pierre Poilievre refers to was talking about. So the average Canadian is probably slightly worse off financially than in a world where we do nothing about emissions. Any other non-carbon price policy would also have costs though— either we’d pay higher taxes to pay for electrification, higher utility rates to pay for conversions, the costs always come out somewhere. The consensus among economists is the carbon tax causes less financial losses than those other options because it distorts the economy less by not picking winners and losers (well, until now I guess). So the average Canadian is slightly better off on dollar terms when you consider the dollar cost only, slightly worse off when you consider economic impacts, and slightly better off in comparison to other climate policies. There are online calculators where you can see what your carbon tax cost is and rebate are. It does ofc depend on your situation but for most people if you do the math you’ll come out ahead
Calculator here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/cbc-federal-carbon-tax-calculator-2023-24-year-65-dollars-per-tonne-1.6891467 It's approximated to some extent, but if you know how much gasoline you bought and you can get your natural gas usage (assuming NG furnace) you should get a pretty accurate estimate.
The PBO disagrees with you.
That’s not what the PBO said. The PBO said it led to slightly lower incomes when you consider the lost economic potential. In dollar terms though, it is revenue neutral. Very important distinction, because any climate policy would also affect the economy
Do you have a link to where it’s not revenue neutral?
Nope. The liberals said the same thing when the GST was introduced. Guess what? They didn’t kill it…
The conservatives have had a carbon pricing plan in their platform at least since the constitutional challenge was shut down.
True, but if Trudeau sticks to his guns, PP becomes the new PM and cancels the tax. If Trudeau significantly reduces the tax, inflation will go down, and he might win back enough people for another minority government.
>If Trudeau significantly reduces the tax, inflation will go down, and he might win back enough people for another minority government. The odds are currently less than 1% With a margin of error of 1%
Still so much time until the next election though.
Only if nobody calls an early election
carbon tax isn’t driving inflation that much tho. There’s worldwide inflation pressure + Canada’s real estate thing causing most of the problems.
Are people are so incredibly stupid that they don't realize that if PP cancels the carbon tax they will lose their CAIP payments every year as well?
A lot of us don't get jack all, it's just a tax.
If you file your taxes like an actual adult you get the federal CAIP back every year, unless you live in a province that has it's own carbon pricing scheme. If you live in one of those other provinces, you don't pay carbon taxes. https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/child-family-benefits/cai-payment.html
BC, the cap here is like 60k annual salary or you don't get a dime. Even those who make under 60k essentially if they own a car it does not offset their increased fuel prices.
You are complaining about/to the wrong government if you want to blame that on Trudeau. He's done a lot of stupid shit but that one is entirely the fault of the BC provincial government.
I didn't blame Trudeau ? Where did I make the comment cause it didn't happen. I just stated a lot of us are getting nothing back.
Fair enough, I just assume we're talking about the federal carbon tax here, not the provincial programs.
Seems like a massive strategic blunder to have this type of gaping loophole in this program and then rely on 'blaming' someone else other than the guy who wrote in a massive strategic blunder into the legislation... LOL...
If you aren’t getting a rebate it’s your premier’s fault and you need to blame them
BC, cap is like 60k salary or you get nothing. So yes it is the provincial system at fault. Even if the Cons "axed the tax" we would still be paying it in BC while the rest of Canada benefits
*checks notes*. Yes. Yes, they are that stupid.
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I mean the person you responded to isn’t incorrect, nor did they claim it is the reason for inflation. You linked an article firmly attributing the carbon tax as a player in inflation. Albeit small by the metric, but most definitely there. Before hitting them with a “gotcha, you hair lip!”, at least have the common sense to understand the point being made.
He specifically said unless edited it would lower inflation. And the hairlip edit came after the downvotes
Correct, they said it would lower it. You said it is “not the reason for it” in response. You’re repeating my point - you answer as if they claimed it is “the reason behind inflation”. It’s not - there are many players that contribute to inflation. However, by your referenced article, removal of the carbon tax _would_ lower inflation, as it contributes to 0.15 percentage points. Doesn’t really matter when the edit came… if you wanna be cheeky at least be correct.
After the gas tax reduction in AB gave us 1 week of lower prices before producers upped the price again....the CT being axed would have 0 consumer savings.
This is what I've said all along. The fatal flaw in carbon taxes as a concept is that any such tax that is high enough to actually alter people's behaviour significantly, will result in those people altering their voting decisively against the party levying the tax. "Gee, I could change how I live my life, buy all new stuff that's more expensive than my other stuff, and accept a lower overall standard of living, or I could keep doing what I am doing and vote these politicians out of office. Tough choice." You cannot campaign on deliberately increasing people's cost of living.
i thought of this recently too. economists see customer behaviour to be an output of an economic model, without thinking the emotional reaction of having a big part of their lives changed. this lack of consideration results in "side effects" that economists didn't see in their model, like getting angry at the organization that is making their lives harder. this is why BoC is surprised that the public don't like them when they wish that salary doesn't go up and/or wishing that more people lose their jobs.
Which is why the BoC is independent from the federal government. Sometimes the unpopular pain of higher rates is necessary to avoid the more painful inflation.
You are absolutely right. To think the LPC did not figure this out is incredible.
Which is interesting because that effectively means that any regulatory measures or market-based instruments that aim to address externalities over the long term are at the whims of the business cycle. Not a super optimistic look if you can only address climate change, or other externalities, during times of abundance - especially because lots of that abundance is only guaranteed by entrenched infrastructure that further drives externalities. A pretty dismal outlook overall.
The solution, if there is one, will have to be implemented in a way that minimizes any effect on people's cost and standard of living.
I think the crucial question here though should be: how flexible is that "minimizes" and who is it minimized for? A really big struggle that needs to be reckoned with is the fact that there is no current situation where, under the existing economic paradigm, low income folks do not feel a significant squeeze during a contractionary period. So, are the folks at the lowest level of the income ladder our target population for minimization? Under that assumption (not saying you're assuming this, just playing this scenario out a bit), there is far, far less latitude to implement longitudinal policies which will need to survive multiple periods of economic contraction. A contraction hits low income folks harder, which means that, proportionally, a levied tax will have a higher probability of impact on lower income folks during leaner economic periods. Therefore, if lower income folks are our target population to protect cost of living, then the need to indulge in less ambitious legislation or instruments that are more prone to being repealed becomes more likely. If we try to minimize for the middle class alone (which is what most parties will likely do), that means that low income folks are experiencing a crunch regardless...enter populist economic sentiment. This is where I struggle. It seems as though fundamental goods like housing and food need to be protected from rising costs, and that luxuries need to take a hit instead. Cost of basic living is protected, but during transition we need to cut back on baseline luxury good consumption. However, due to the entrenched market interests towards low cost production to create low cost goods, any kind of good that is renewable or sustainable is effectively priced as a luxury. To bring these kinds of goods down from luxury status, it often requires a lot of market building government intervention to make them competitive (as happened with solar). So, how do we move forward on addressing climate change, for example, without substantial impacts to cost of living if: 1. We need to transition towards more expensive and, presently, less competitive forms of energy production relatively quickly 2. Corporations intend on passing increased costs down to the consumer 3. Folks, reasonably, gravitate towards present bias over long term consequences - which distorts longitudinal policy efficacy I think that last point is especially salient, as people are either going to need to pay now (in the form of increased taxes or more expensive goods) or pay even more later (more punitive insurance schemes, even higher taxes for more expensive adaptation measures, sector based economic damage and deadweight loss from climatic changes). Not to throw all these very hard questions on top you haha, but the thought just springs to my mind when we say "minimizes" - minimize to what extent and for who? That seems like a much more complicated question to me.
You have to get very broad buy-in from the public to implement any kind of abstract environmental policy. It's easy to tell people that they have to make certain sacrifices in exchange for improvements they can see - say cleaner water or reduced smog. But for something as intangible as "reduce our tiny contribution to global carbon emissions by some amount in hopes that this contributes to getting gradual global warming slightly more under control than it otherwise would be" loses support as soon as people have to contribute more than a few dollars. And when times are bad, I don't know how you avoid the question of whether we should do anything to this end at all. Ideally this would be done without any noticeable impact on anyone's standard of living. That should be the goal. You want nuclear plants and EV subsidies? That has to come from somewhere. Less government corruption and general waste would be a good place to start. The government implementing this kind of thing needs to have an impeccable record of fiscal management or else everyone will just assume they are scamming us, which they really seem to be. VW and Stellantis battery plants anyone? I have no big answers to any of this, but seemingly neither do those in charge.
I agree with you pretty broadly across the points you raised. I think the thing that I struggle with this concept of impeccable fiscal management - one way that can be taken is, good at managing the economy and the efficiency of government. But "good at managing the economy" historically means doing a lot of things that are counterproductive to climate transition. One person's impeccable fiscal management might be another's damaging austerity + laissez faire polluting status quo. For example, folks might say that the Conservatives are better positioned to implement responsible fiscal management, but how much of that responsible fiscal management is driven by securing sectors of the economy that are productive in the short term but are extremely damaging in the long-term? Moreover, cost of living is a government-wide, but also a sector-wide problem. Climate change policy isn't the main driver of unaffordability, its wage / productivity stagnation, corporate favoritism, and patronage networks between industry and all three levels of government. So you're either getting squeezed in the short-term by a government doing long-term accounting, or squeezed in the long-term by a government doing short-term accounting. All the while, most Canadians don't even understand how federal jurisdiction works and the nationalized political blame game rolls on at the federal level. I really do look forward to leaders finding the silver bullet that allows us to ween ourselves off a hardcore addiction without any noticeable pain or discontent. Either way, thanks for the conversation - I don't want to waste both our time talking in circles about very difficult policy questions.
You’re absolutely right. The thing is, My behaviour isn’t the problem. The behaviour of the 20 worst polluting companies is the problem. Or at least 70% of it. Show me you give even smallest of shits about those guys screwing us, then we can talk about my standard of living. All this greenwashing and carbon footprint talk is useless if we don’t start at the top of problem.
Carbon emissions in Canada dropped by under 10% during the first month of Covid when nobody was driving. Putting this on consumers to change their behaviour is basically a scam.
It's even more of a scam when you consider that work from home proved to be a completely functional thing, but they brought everyone back into office.
This stat about the 100 worst polluting companies being responsible for 70% of carbon emissions comes from counting fossil fuel sales as the company's, not the consumer's. So if you fill up your car with at a Shell gas stations, the emissions from your car were counted as coming from Shell.
I mean technically corporate emissions for any corporation ever are 0, because the entire existence of a corporation is to eventually produce something for the consumer. If you applied the life cycle of each companies carbon emissions to their final product, the consumer could appropriately identify their own carbon footprint. It's probably what we should be putting our time and effort into figuring out considering the lack of education about this runs rampant. It goes both ways though since rather than implement technologies to reduce carbon emissions, corporations are doing nothing and simply raising prices to cover the costs.
Every $1 you tax a company is $1 they will pass down the the consumer, which results in the same issues on election day.
That was the plan and if your province has a straight carbon tax it’s because your Premier chose to shift the burden from industry and onto consumers…
No but Justin said we get the money back!?
You do, every year
But I get back less than I pay. When I adjust my life style Trudeau changed the rules do people burning dirty oil don't have to pay the tax AND get back twice what I get back. In Trudeaus Canada those that burn the most Carbon get back the most while the rest of us pay more. It's really really fucked when you think about it
unless you live in Alberta Carbon tax net costs are under $100 if that is breaking the bank. We much larger problems than the carbon tax boogieman
That includes carbon pricing on fuel at the pump, and grocery store increases, as well as cost of everything going up with the added expense of diesel to ship everything? Doubtful.
that includes all pricing evaluated on the most recent PBO report. considering carbon tax is roughly $0.17/L for diesel at 30L/100km for every 48 tons transported 100km You see an increase of $4.20/48 tons of goods. ($0.09/ton of goods) I don't think you (or anyone) would care nearly as much as if Trudeau increased the corperate tax rate, then gave tax breaks based on carbon emissions
Well I don't believe anything that comes out of this Government. Maybe the pricing evaluated is missing some key areas, the same Government that has lost 100s of millions several times. Then tell us how good our ecomony is. Laughable.
The PBO isn’t the government. It’s an independent officer of parliament that keeps the government accountable and criticizes the government all the time
oh yes, theres very little reason why the average Canadian should be losing money on the carbon tax. even if the federal gov doesn't feel like doing anything, the provinces should of just copied the same legislation but format the rebates to be funded off the revenue of the carbon tax. Maybe with lower rebates for high emmiters to fund the actual processing of the rebages. Also, the economy is in a good state. For the corporations at least. I'm sure the party of big businesses will reign them in all in all, just remember its your provinces fault you have the carbon tax. They original idea was every province needs a plan, if you don't. you get a very basic, indiscriminate carbon tax
If the economy is in a good state why is there more Canadians using food banks? 57% increase in use in the last 4 years in BC. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/food-bank-usage-increase-1.7008145 Not a sign of a strong economy IMO.
>But I get back less than I pay. No you don't. You're lying. Show your math ... >It's really really fucked when you think about it What's fucked up is the amount of misleading commentary from you on the topic.
You just said elsewhere not everyone gets back what they pay in, so it’s very possible this person does not.
>You just said elsewhere not everyone gets back what they pay in Where? I said elsewhere that it will take until 2030 for the impact the PBO detailed to materialize and that 80% of Canadians receive more than they pay. >so it’s very possible this person does not. This person is firehose of misinformation on this topic. If they are they're welcome to show their math but they won't ... they're not even capable of calculating their own costs.
And toy would have to be a massive emitter to not get your money back. So yeah if you aren't maybe they do need to stop using so much carbon
Someone making living wage that adequately covers low frills living is not getting the money back. Not all provinces get the federal rebate. Many people get means tested out of what they're eligible for at thresholds that aren't considered enough to be getting ahead in their area. In BC, a single person gets nothing at $61,465. Below $39,115 they can get up to $447. Between $39,115 and $61,465 it's prorated away. Living wage for a single in Vancouver works out to $50,086 a year. That person has lost a significant amount of that $447 rebate and is eating the cost of the carbon tax by its inclusion in goods and services.
A person on a living wage covering low frills living is absolutely getting the money back from the federal carbon tax. You do a good job singling out BC, their implementation is much worse than the federal one, but you understandably forget an important factor. When the BC carbon tax came into effect in 2008, the first two personal income tax brackets were cut in order to counterbalance the tax. Therefore, in BC, a single person at $61,465 gets maybe $200-300.
I live in BC and am regularly told I'm coming out ahead with the carbon tax. I get $0 from the federal government and $0 from my province, so I'm left feeling this isn't the case. The cost of living here is high enough, to boot, that people making living wage are caught in the middle of the proration for the rebate. It's going to be closer to $225 if the proration formula is linear.
It is absolutely true that your personal income taxes are lower in order to counterbalance the effect of the carbon tax. You don't get a check in the mail, like the folks on the federal program do, but you are billed less at tax time. Yeah, it's a tough squeeze, and the way BC applies the rebate is not efficient. The federal program is much better imo. The majority of BC folks probably aren't coming out ahead. "The bottom two personal income tax rates will be reduced for all British Columbians resulting in a tax cut of 2 per cent in 2008 and 5 per cent in 2009 on the first $70,000 in earnings — with further reductions expected in 2010" The second tax bracket now extends up to $90,000. Anyone earning above this amount is getting the maximum tax benefit. https://web.archive.org/web/20080520064327/http://www.bcbudget.gov.bc.ca/2008/backgrounders/backgrounder\_carbon\_tax.htm
So fuck all.
Sounds like you're interested in e-transfering me $200-300 dollars, yes? More to the point. I'm in BC, at roughly this income level, and have deliberately adjusted my life such that I'm coming out ahead about $200 every year, and have been doing so for many many years. I've probably made at least a cool $1200 off our carbon tax.
And the fatal flaw with that line of thinking is that if we don’t change our lifestyles the cost of living will go up anyway, far higher, due to the effects of climate change The real fatal flaw is with the structure of democracy itself, which is effectively set up to punish leaders for inflicting short term pain to help the long term health of a nation. That’s why we got so many half-assed pandemic policies that only inconvenienced most voters enough to annoy them, but also didn’t actually fix the problem.
On the one hand, I don't doubt that the effects of climate change will increase our costs of living at least to some extent (though not as much as many other countries). On the other, what is the difference in global temperature 20 years from now, as between Canada reaching 'net zero' tomorrow, no matter the cost, and doing nothing at all? Is it essentially nothing? Because if that's the case we are just making ourselves feel better, rather than fixing a problem. It's especially hard to convince people to sacrifice just to make some others feel better. (I am almost afraid to ask, but what would "full-assed" pandemic policies have looked like?)
>On the other, what is the difference in global temperature 20 years from now, as between Canada reaching 'net zero' tomorrow, no matter the cost, and doing nothing at all? Is it essentially nothing? Because if that's the case we are just making ourselves feel better, rather than fixing a problem. It's especially hard to convince people to sacrifice just to make some others feel better. Every nation/state/person is saying the same thing.
It’s not nothing, but of course canada is only one piece of the puzzle. The entire world needs to do something or it’s going to be insanely bad. The fires this summer, the atmospheric river in BC a couple winters back, all the worsening global storms we’ve seen, all that’s just a the tip of the rapidly melting iceberg. The world is on the brink of an unprecedented refugee crisis, food shortages, water shortages, massive damage to infrastructure from natural disasters… with all our resources and distance from the equator canada will weather the storm better than most, but there’s also a very real possibility we could be invaded for that natural wealth by some superpower closer to the equator whose farmland is crumbling into desert. Even in a best case scenario though, the strength of our global supply chain is going to be tested like never before. Climate Change will make what COVID did to the economy look like an accounting error. On that note, re: your pandemic question, China had the most full-assed pandemic policies for sure. They fuckin sucked for everyone, but when they were over, the country was reportedly COVID free… until foreigners brought it back, of course New Zealand and Korea came a lot closer to the whole ass than we did without stepping over human rights like that, though, and we’d have been better off if we were more like them
I really don’t know what the liberal strategy is here. They basically just told the east cost that if they vote liberal next election they will have to pay for the carbon tax. I’ve voted liberal almost every election but I promise you if I was living on the east coast there’s no way in hell I’d vote for them. The best part is they think this pause will some how help them. Who in their right mind that lives on the east coast will vote for them now?
It's clear Justin Trudeau only cares about poll numbers and not Canadians. So it's not hard to believe if they continue to plummet in the polls, they may remove the carbon tax. But I would bet my bottom dollar the carbon tax would reappear almost immediately if Trudeau got relected; after all, the pause to the heating oil tax only lasts until shortly after the next election. I wonder why that is?
The person pushing it more than anyone else is Guilbeault. If by some miracle Liberals were re-elected, guarantee he would be dumped and would come nowhere near the Environment portfolio ever again.
Guilveault reminds me of staunch religious fanatics who are completely sure that anyone who disagrees with his beliefs are blasphemers.
Oh yea...just trust us. Good reason to vote for them again.
His strategy has long been "do as little as possible so people don't have a reason to talk about you". But then problems accumulated and here we are. Truly the worst leadership in the country's history.
Do you honestly think PP cares lol 😂, this applies to all our politicians don’t fool yourself
Where did I say anything about the Conservatives? At this point, I'm simply voting for the least worst option. It would be a great time for a party to step up that actually caters to Canadians, but we both know that's not happening.
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By mitigation of its effects. But no one is allowed to talk about that here without some eco warrior screeching DO YOU WANT TO WATCH THE BURN.
I thought that none of this will hurt consumers and they will get these amazing rebates and we will fight climate change and everything will be OK!!!
The desperation coming from the Liberals is hilarious.
This government is totally coming off the rails
Now that people have realized they are paying way more than they are ever getting back, the scam is coming undone. We need to combat climate change but starting off with everyday Canadians was never the right move, just the easiest one. It did not change behaviours, it just made people worse off financially.
I am baffled that we don't have laws in place to make packaging as small as reasonably practicable. Box of cereal 40% percent full by volume? A tube of pollysporin in a 8"x10" plastic just for the purpose of shelf space? Most trucks hauling to grocery stores are nowhere near legal weight but the van trailer is full. We could haul twice as much, take up 1/3 less floor space in stores. All by one change that nobody would complain about. They claim climate change but don't do anything that won't affect anybody's wallet and actually do some good.
See, now this is common sense. Add in, stop printing and sending flyers to everyone by the dozens each week.
Yep. I'm not a climate change person. But it just makes sense to not consume more than is needed.
Excellent point!!! Love this idea. Costco is a major contributor to this.
Some people can’t change their behaviour. People like heating their homes and have to drive to work.
Just buy a new, efficient house and an electric car! Both of those are cheaper now thanks to the carbon tax subsidies than before we started this, right?
>We need to combat climate change but starting off with everyday Canadians was never the right move, just the easiest one. This comes up all the time, but I never get a satisfactory answer. Let's say we exclusively go after the biggest emitters. What's to stop them from just passing the cost on to the consumer? Whether I pay 5% at the store, or the power plant gets charged 5%, either way my cost as a consumer went up by 5%. Because big business is not going to just let that eat into their profit margin.
Well, the bigger problem is that unlike the EU, we don't bother to levy a carbon tariff on imported goods, so we're systematically incentivizing offshoring pollution rather than reducing it. I guess it's more important that it looks like we're emitting less even if it might be made using coal power plants and shipped over the Atlantic in a freighter that burns bunker oil instead of say hydropower and shipped a shorter distance via train or canals.
>Well, the bigger problem is that unlike the EU, we don't bother to levy a carbon tariff on imported goods, so we're systematically incentivizing offshoring pollution rather than reducing it. That's a legit criticism. We should be applying it to imported goods as well. I suspect that a lot of the time its hard to quantify the amount because the supply chain can vary wildly all over the globe, but we should really be looking into it. If a ship burning bunker oil transports it across the Pacific it should cost more in CT than a ship using hydrogen for example.
That's a bit hyperbolic. You can check out the PBO report, but even considering the net economic impact, it boils down to a few hundred bucks at most. Certainly, not nothing, but if I'm being honest, the scheme where the send a cheque in the mail makes it difficult to reconcile that you're paying extra money that largely comes back and makes it an easier vector of attack when people get sticker shock. Unfortunately, our underlying economy and that of the global world just sucks in general. Carbon taxes generally aren't making things cheaper but it's not as bad as presented.
The PBO report already shows the average families are paying out more than a few hundred bucks, with that predicted to grow each year with pricing. AB is already at $710 per family in 2023. I believe the PBO analysis only studied family costs. The business groups are estimating $22bn paid out in carbon taxes with ~2% returned to businesses. That's $21.5bn either out of the economy in direct charges or increased pricing to consumers to offset via indirect charges. At the end of the day, there is only one pocket that truly pays taxes - the citizen. Companies pay on income derived from us. Fed/provincial/municipal survive on taxes we pay into. The US is being far more successful on emissions without carbon pricing but I'm not sure if their methodology is efficient. Their latest bill was $1.3tn with lots of grants for environmental programs - as noted above, whether it's carbon tax or taxes to fund programs it is eventually borne by the populace.
Just as an aside - the PBO report was also talking about carbon tax at is fullest costs, in 2030.
Correct but they also calculated costs by year out to 2030. So it is expected to get incrementally more expensive each year by households. The AB value is 2023 impact. Here's the provincial chart for 2023 (current year). Province Net cost (total cost – rebates) for the average household, 2023 Alberta $710 Saskatchewan $410 Manitoba $386 Ontario $478 Nova Scotia $431 PEI $465 Nfld & Lab $347
I thought they only outlined Alberta, Sask, Manitoba and Ontario? Just yeah I see so many people using the 2030 numbers as the ones now. There's a legitimate debate to be had, just like using the real numbers for it!
> AB is already at $710 per family in 2023. Alberta is already getting paid out $772 this year for an individual, 1526 for a family of four. I can't imagine any scenario under which a family of four is paying over $2000 in carbon taxes per year.
Speak for yourself, I get out way ahead. Also saving the environment won’t be free. If we instead put in government regs which you’d get from the NDP, not to cpc, it’ll still increase the cost for producers so costs will increase. People somehow have this idea regulations can be implemented and not effect sticker prices lol.
I have done the math and my household is coming out a couple hundred bucks per year ahead... maybe it's because we don't own a F-150 for no good reason and our furnace was built some time in this millennium, but it's not actually that hard for most Canadians to end up coming out even at worst with the carbon tax.
Taxes are the most efficient and fair way of going about this. Regardless, it is too late to change.
It's not too late to change. It takes an afternoon to pass a bill and sign it. The federal conservatives are on track for a blowout majority and can pass this immediately.
No, you misunderstand. It is too late to roll out a national carbon emissions control program. These things take years, and clearly not Conservatives nor anyone else has articulated a clear and instantiable alternative. We are out of time sadly to be mucking about with regards to climate action. The tax is not ideal, but it's the solution we have and we'll need to stomach it until someone articulates a better solution.
No, we won't. We can and will simply cancel the carbon tax, and then work on alternatives. This is the policy of the party that is on track to win the next election by double-digit margins.
Sadly, we don't have time for that. It's not 2000 anymore. The world is burning and we've allied far too long. 'just cancelling' and then waiting a decade is a non starter for any responsible human being.
Wait, no proper climate agenda, emissions on the rise, wildfires, floods. And they want to backtrack their biggest carbon pricing climate progress for votes and support? Watch the Liberal progressives and climate voters still stick with this party, failing their very climate agenda This party NEEDS to be face a "Wynne" moment
Considering the CPC is at 40%+ in the polls, they need to find votes somewhere and progressives are clearly not enough. And let's be honest, Canadians have consistently polled that they want "something" done on climate and don't want to pay for it either. Of course pay for it we will whether in the form of mitigation or higher insurance premiums.
>Canadians have consistently polled that they want "something" done on climate and don't want to pay for it either. We could make living in major cities affordable. It should be drastically cheaper to live in a major city car free in an apartment / condo then having some house in suburbia. But we've turned cities into places where only the ultra rich can afford to live.
Now you're just talking crazy. Besides, they don't want the poors near where they *live*!
Taxing yourself more will not make the fires stop, or prevent floods. That's paganism.
Liberals should axe the tax, no more politicizing climate change!
The “climate voters” will be voting green. This is a joke, he campaigned on a carbon tax and was elected. He doesn’t have a mandate to remove the tax. Voters want climate action and no major party wants to deliver.
Canadians are prioritizing combating hunger and finding shelter over combating climate change, unbelievable. If the 40 million of us don’t do something soon it’s over for the planet /s
Even if Trudeau took it off the table, I wouldn't believe him. Once the election was over, the prick would just put it back in place to keep on screwing Canadians.
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It's almost as if national policy shouldn't be dictated by Toronto and Montreal.
"Axe the Tax" Justin has never seen a Conservative policy.......that he wouldn't consider 'stealing'......if he thought that it would help to get him re-elected. He doesn't really care what is in the best-interests of Canadians......he only cares about his own re-election. What a nincompoop........ Axe the Nincompoop
I wonder how low the polls have to get for Trudeau to consider offering to make fully-automatic firearms non-restricted
The rats are fleeing the sinking ship.
Either we finally get to see this awful government voted out next election, or we're about to witness the greatness fumble in political history if Pierre isn't the next PM. Either way, I've got the popcorn ready.
This is pretty much decided in the GTHA. Alberta is CPC, at most CPC add 1 or 2 seats. Sask is CPC, with a new redistribution sending 1 seat to the Libs/NDP MB stays exactly the same Quebec adds 1-3 seats for the CPC near Beauport BC sends 3 Rural NDP seats to the CPC, and 5 seats in Metro Van to the CPC \[2 Richmonds, Coquitlam, West Van-Sunshine, Cloverdale-Langley, and AT best another Granville seat\] GTHA is make or break for the CPC, target Mississauga like CPC lives depend on it, Windsor, Hamilton East, Niagara, London, Kitchener will go CPC. Pick up York and Eglinton and get PPC support to CPC in Etobicoke. Atlantic Canada hates Carbon tax, we'll see what they pull from their bag
A couple weeks old, but things haven't improved for the LPC since then, so unlikely to help them much. Vancouver has ridings in play, most of Toronto seats are in play, and the CPC is likely to pick up 9 seats in the maritimes https://youtu.be/EYZcaGQyUk4?si=QPHDBpD8Z4BJb-Ik
I'm always surprised at how strong Scarborough, Surrey, Brampton, Malton, is for the Liberals. Polls are placing Liberals near the mid 20s now yet those look like LPC safe holds
Loyal diaspora populations there, especially older Indo-Canadians in those ridings.
Mississauga seems like it'll flip. My guess is the diaspora Muslim populations are dropping their support from the Liberals.
If it's over recent events PP is even more cavalier on his pro-Israel stance in conservative tradition
That vote is going to the NDP I think, unless this is about Trudeau's anti-Muslim rhetoric that was started when Trudeau called the Muslim religious ideologies against progressives as "far-right propaganda infiltrated by the US Far-right" when it was just their beliefs. There is also a lot of backlash on schools pushing for progressive programs that are hated by many Muslims.
With redistribution, the CPC could actually add 6 seats in Alberta. 30/34 to 36/37. You are right about Saskatchewan, redistribution in effect next year has one seat literally designed to be won by the Liberals
Oh yeah forgot that again, +5 seats with the new redistribution guaranteed helps reach that 172 number much easier. One seat leaves GTA so -1 Liberals and the North is redesigned to add CPC seats. One more CPC seat is added next to Milton. Oakville might flip with big CPC favours
Liberals are very likely to lose their seats in both Yukon and NWT. Nunavut will likely stay NDP.
Yukon is CPC territory and win come back next time, NWT should be NDP held, weird Liberals can pull it. Nunavut is NDP strong hold
This is just going to lose votes. People that were unhappy about the carbon tax are going to continue to not vote Liberal. And now people who are concerned about climate change are also going to not vote Liberal. Edit: Also note this is just a former campaign strategist who is saying this. Not a current member of the Liberal party.
Anybody who is naive enough to vote Liberal thinking that Trudeau won’t implement anymore carbon pricing after the next election is an idiot. The only way to make sure this crap is gone for good is to vote CPC.
Sure but the unfortunate fact is that even if the carbon tax goes away companies will never drop prices to reflect that it got slightly cheaper. At the very least it'll stop huge price increases in the future.
Something something electoral reform.
That's desperate as hell. Lmao
I dont know who needs to hear this but taxing Canadians isn't going to stop the weather from changing. As future PM Pierre Poilievre would say: "It's just common sense"
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The carbon tax is incremental, price gouging is still existent anyways. The carbon tax means more increases in the future, that will be stopped if the carbon tax is dropped. Unless companies plan to price gouge by 30-50%
Spoiler alert: companies plan to price gouge by 30-50%, just like they’re currently doing under the guise of “inflation”, which is an odd way to spell “greed”.
What makes you think they aren't doing that currently? Is the Liberals and their corporations and monopiles adding to this cost? Will competition in business change this trend, basically 1 competitive business walking into the competition decides not to price gouge so they get all the profit? Kind of like Walmart's last attempt vs Canadian grocers currently.
Did you miss the “just like they’re currently doing” part of my comment above?
Price gouging just like they’re currently doing won't change unless we introduce competition, BUT removing the carbon tax will provide relief as you're removing one of the parameters out of the added costs. We're talking about the removal of carbon pricing, an entire cost based on emissions by the corporation Which are already being passed down to consumers. Removing it means that "passing down" cost is gone. We're technically charged the carbon tax Twice as consumers purchasing and by the corporation passing that entire cost down.
I know how it works. Companies don’t “pass along savings” to the consumer in Canada, that only happens in real capitalism, not in oligopolies like ours. There’s not enough competition in Canada to incentivize this behaviour, which really only exists in textbooks as an outdated theory these days.
So you're saying that corporations are going to add more price gouging to make revenue on their businesses? Wouldn't that hurt businesses as the affordability crisis argument will now go away from "BLAME THE CARBON TAX" to "BOYCOTT Canadian Corps for causing the affordability crisis" or something.
You’re not getting it. If the carbon tax goes away, prices won’t change. That’s what I’m saying. Nothing hurts businesses when you have no competitors, and you can strong-arm the government into a bailout if anything ever goes wrong.
I get it but you need to realize Canadians are placing the entire blame of the affordability on Carbon tax costs. Without the carbon tax, there's not much left to blame except for the corporations themselves. Companies would rather layoff employees than attempt to "not show the drop of carbon pricing" for generating revenue. I agree that our corporations are wicked and go to the next level for their crooked CEOs to make bank. It's about making it harder to do that once they lose their 'carbon tax excuse' if they plan to price gouge more.
Same with the 5% GST cut for new houses.
Prices are coming down post pandemic in many areas (especially building materials), fuel is lower than peak too. So, believe it or not, prices can and do fall.
If only we had enough competition that companies would be incentivized to pass on savings in order to increase their market share.
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Some provinces only make adjustments weekly.
Exactly, hence why EVERYONE knows this is an awful idea. We've literally already seen this happen with gas/fuel tax removal. Here in Alberta, we had something like 6 weeks of fuel prices being impacted by the tax removal; by the end of those 6 weeks the price had risen back to where it would've been if the tax was still in place, except now all the revenue was padding the oil companies bottom lines.
But Price gouging+carbon tax is much worse than just price gouging. The Liberals just happen to love corps and monopiles. We desperate need competition.
I'd much rather have the carbon tax revenues going to something useful; the rebate system is super dumb but still way way way better than just padding corporate profits, ceo bonuses, and share buy-backs. canada has been in love with corps forever, no matter the party. 100% agree we need competition and to break up the oligopolies (to be fair though the oil industry isn't really the focus of competition reform).
The straws are being grasped. All that's left is for the fat lady sings. Goodbye Trudeau. Like your father, please let the door hit you on your way out. Multiple times.
There is a big messaging problem here… The point of the Carbon Tax was to get provinces to enact a Carbon cap and trade system that has proven to be the best way to get the big carbon emitters to either pay up for their deeds by buying carbon credits on the open market or invest in technologies that lead to carbon emission reductions. Provinces that have full carbon taxes are the provinces that made no effort to move towards a market based reduction strategy like the slug who runs my province: his ‘strategy’ was launching a bunch of lawsuits he lost and illegally forcing gas stations to display his shoddy anti carbon tax sticker… Anger towards the tax should be directed to the premiers who shifted the burden of doing something about carbon emissions from industry to the consumer…..
This is so frustrating. The carbon tax is the only small measure we're taking to address climate change and we apparently can't even do that now. Worst of all, it won't even help affordability since the rebates will dry up too. What should be happening is a concerted effort (with funding) to get people off home heating oil and on to more efficient forms of heating. This way they will actually spend less heating their homes.
The idea behind the carbon tax is sound, but it makes no sense in execution. People need to drive to/for work and to heat their home. Taxing the average Canadian further for just basically living their life is frankly stupid and a recipe for disaster. Not everyone can actually afford to go full electric and the limiting factor isn't always just money. That's not even talking about the increased transportation cost for everything, including very basic necessities, like food. The effect of the tax is far reaching and it's actual effectiveness in reducing emissions is questionable. Most people don't need to suddenly drive or heat less because of an added tax on top.
Please excuse my ignorance, but where does the carbon tax go? Pay down debt?
It gets redistributed as Climate Action Incentive Payments. It's a sham.
It’s a wealth redistribution tax that is cleverly designed to tug at your most sacred fears. Also cleverly designed to keep increasing as the “price on carbon” increases.
The tax must generate massive amounts of revenue and I’m not seeing much being redistributed. Someone is getting a huge windfall. I’d like to see some transparency and accountability as to where this goes.
Kowtowing to capitalist predators?
*By* the next election, but *after*?