Commentary
It’s nothing new to say that conservative politicians are speaking out against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s controversial carbon tax. They’ve been doing it for years, including waging court challenges against the pesky fee.
What’s different now though is more voices are joining the fray to critique the tax, as it feels increasingly unfair in the face of cost-of-living concerns. One of those voices includes a Liberal MP.
The federal carbon tax was first proposed 15 years ago by then Liberal leader Stephane Dion. It was roundly condemned as unworkable and accurately branded by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper as a “tax on everything.” While the tax would be noticed primarily by consumers when filling up their gas tanks, such a fuel and energy tax would end up pushing up the price on most products. And so it has.
When Trudeau first introduced the tax he made the incredible claim that it would leave families better off. The basic notion that a tax would put more money in your pockets defies common sense. But Trudeau was referring to the rebate put in place, which they labelled the Climate Action Incentive.
The rebate is paid out on tax returns, long after families have had to float the upfront costs of the tax. What you receive is also an average calculation. It’s not like you get to keep your carbon tax receipts, tally them up and then receive a meaningful rebate on what you actually paid out. It’s all guesswork as to whether or not a family would receive more money than they put into the scheme.
However, now that the tax has been in place for a few years and has steadily increased every year, it seems the numbers just aren’t working anymore.
“The Parliamentary Budget Officer is clear: the carbon tax costs families hundreds of dollars more than the rebates they get back,” said Franco Terrazzano, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), in a recent press release.
It’s one thing to have such an activist tax in place when times are good. But a tax that doesn’t use its revenues for basic service delivery but instead to fight an environmental cause is a luxury that we can’t afford right now.
People are struggling to pay the bills. Families are balking at the price of daily products. Mortgages are being renewed at much higher amounts, which will cause some Canadian families to sadly lose their homes. Anything the government does to wilfully worsen the situation—such as keep the carbon tax in place—is just wrong.
This is why Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre put forward a motion in the House of Commons “to repeal all carbon taxes to bring home lower prices on gas, groceries, and home heating.”
The motion was rejected by almost every MP from the other parties. Almost. One Liberal did take a stand against his own party’s beloved tax.
“Everywhere I go, people come up to me and say, you know, we’re losing faith in the Liberal Party,” said Newfoundland Liberal MP Ken McDonald, during a CBC interview, in explaining why he voted against the carbon tax. “I’ve had people tell me they can’t afford to buy groceries. They can’t afford to heat their homes, and that’s hard to hear from, especially seniors who live alone and tell me that they go around their house in the spring and winter time with a blanket wrapped around them ‘cause they can’t afford the home heating fuel and they can’t afford to buy beef or chicken.”
It’s the price of food that has Professor Sylvain Charlebois, of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, concerned about the tax. He believes there hasn’t been adequate research into just how much the carbon tax is pushing up the price of food. Charlebois recently posted to social media about “the strong (and blind) pro-carbon tax influence in academia,” adding that “if you raise concerns about the carbon tax, you face accusations of climate change denial.” He’s undeterred though, and is going to continue his research.
The main thing that’s being denied right now on the political front is just how needlessly harmful the carbon tax has become. Let’s hope its days are numbered.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
