Many defenders of Canada’s carbon tax insist it’s a great idea but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hasn’t explained it properly.
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This is utter nonsense.
Trudeau’s real problem is that he has explained it and millions of Canadians are skeptical.
It’s not hard to see why.
Trudeau explained his intentions again this week at a Global Citizen conference held prior to the G20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro.
He said his goal in the coming federal election will be to convince Canadians “they have to pay more in taxes, or they have to accept that some of their tax dollars are going to the most vulnerable in the world” to fight climate change, despite facing an affordability crisis at home.
(Canada is currently contributing $5.3 billion over five years to a global climate fund paid by developed countries to help developing countries adapt to climate change, double the $2.65 billion Trudeau committed from 2015 to 2022.)
Trudeau said he’s fully aware that many families today are more worried about paying the rent and putting food on the table for their children than saving the planet, but he argues that’s because they’re being deceived by oil and gas companies making record profits, the Conservatives and other special interests that want to preserve the status quo for selfish reasons.
He said his job in the election will be to convince Canadians that paying to combat climate change now, despite the ongoing affordability crisis, will be beneficial to them in the long term because of the economic benefits of converting Canada’s fossil-fuel based economy to green energy technology.
That’s what he said. Here are the problems with it.
First, Trudeau argued that his carbon tax — currently $80 per tonne of industrial greenhouse gas emissions rising by almost 19% to $95 per tonne on April 1, 2025 on its way to $170 per tonne on April 1, 2030 — leaves eight out of 10 households paying it (everywhere but Quebec and B.C. that have separate systems) better off, because of quarterly climate action incentives payments.
But that ignores the finding by independent parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux that when factoring in the economic damage caused by Trudeau’s carbon tax, 60% of families actually pay more in carbon taxes than they receive in incentive payments.
Second, Trudeau said he put a price on carbon because it’s more economically efficient at reducing emissions than government regulations or subsidies.
But in the real world, Trudeau’s carbon tax is a relatively minor contributor to reducing emissions.
He has also imposed carbon regulations and subsidies on Canadians, in addition to his carbon tax, through a total of 149 Trudeau government programs, to which it has earmarked $200 billion of taxpayers’ money to date.
As for saving the planet, federal environment commissioner Jerry DeMarco reported earlier this month that Canada is so far behind reaching its target of reducing its emissions to at least 40% below 2005 levels by 2030 that, while he believes the effort is worthwhile, the government is unlikely to achieve it given current trends.
Meanwhile the parliamentary budget officer has reported that at 1.5% of the global total, Canada’s emissions aren’t large enough to materially impact climate change and the severe weather it causes.
The problem for Trudeau has never been that he hasn’t explained his climate change program properly.
It’s that he has explained it and millions of Canadians don’t think it’s a good deal for them, or for Canada.