BY FRANK TERRAZZANO AND KRIS SIMS
To their credit, reporters are asking Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney tough questions about how much his replacement carbon tax will cost.
So far, he doesn’t seem interested in giving a clear answer.
During an announcement in Halifax, Carney said he will erase the “consumer” carbon tax and make big businesses pay it without passing on the costs to everyday people.
Reporters clearly sensed something amiss.
“Does that not ultimately trickle down?” Todd Battis, CTV Atlantic anchor and bureau chief, asked Carney at his announcement and later in a sit-down interview.
That’s a great question, but Carney blew it off.
“No, because what the big companies are producing, by and large, are not products that we are consuming,” Carney replied. “A steel company? How much steel are you using these days, Todd?”
Note: Canadians use steel every day, often to generate energy, haul goods, build vehicles, construct homes and grow food.
Carney claims big companies are not, by and large, producing products we consume.
Does that sound right?
Those companies do some important things. The government of Canada reports: “One of Canada’s largest industries, the steel sector, generates annual sales of more than $11 billion, including $3 billion in exports, and directly employs about 35,000 workers.”
Battis’ question deserves a more honest answer. Does a carbon tax on business trickle down to normal taxpayers? Yes, of course it does.
If a fuel refinery is nailed with Carney’s carbon tax, that business will pass that carbon tax cost down to the rest of us when we fill our cars and trucks with gasoline and diesel.
When Carney hits a utility company with his carbon tax, the business will pass that carbon tax cost down to ordinary people trying to keep their homes warm.
When Carney makes fertilizer plants pay his carbon tax, that increases costs for farmers and makes the price of food go up.
The media caught on and rightly asked Carney more questions about how much his version of the carbon tax will cost Canadians.
“You say you will drop the consumer carbon tax, but will you maintain the federal industrial carbon tax and, if so, are you maintaining the current government levels and increases?” asked Chris Lambie, Atlantic bureau chief for the National Post.
He asked a clear and obvious question. Here’s Carney’s response:
“If you’re sitting here in Halifax and you’re trying to make a decision about buying an EV or a heat pump or home insulation or a better appliance, you’ll see a clear fixed level of credit that you’re going to get, but, we, as the federal government, will turn around and monetize that from the large polluters, and that way the taxpayer is not on the dime,” Carney said.
Nothing in that response remotely answered Lambie’s clear question about whether Carney’s carbon tax would keep going up.
Other reporters kept trying to get clarity.
“You’ve supported the carbon tax and defended Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s stance on the carbon tax, why now, why are you coming out with this now?” asked Lindsay Jones, of the Globe and Mail.
Carney showed his hand, reaffirming his support for the carbon tax, and said only big businesses will pay the cost.
“The perceptions of the negative impacts of the carbon tax on households, without fully recognizing the positive impacts of the rebate, has made this more of a divisive issue that’s been fed by misinformation and lies,” Carney said.
It seems Carney believes it’s “misinformation and lies” when the Parliamentary Budget Officer has repeatedly reported the carbon tax costs Canadians more than they get back in rebates.
Reporters remained unsatisfied.
Here’s another obvious question:
“How are you going to ensure that those ‘big polluters’ don’t pass on the costs to hardworking Canadians?” CBC‘s Luke Ettinger asked.
The response was dismissive.
“When you look at the final value-add, I am going to pick our steel companies again, in terms of the final value-add impact of changes, we are talking in the tens of dollars into auto,” Carney said.
That’s it? “Tens of dollars into an auto?” Is Carney really distilling serious questions about a nation-wide industrial carbon tax to twenty bucks on a new car?
All Canadians, including journalists, simply won’t accept these glib answers. And now he’s changing his story on the carbon tax again.
“The issue wasn’t, to coin a phrase, whether to ‘axe the tax,’ (laughter) the issue was how to change it,” Carney said. “We are making the large companies pay for everybody.”
So, the carbon tax won’t be gone, just changed, and companies will pay it, but they won’t pass it on?
This is no laughing matter for Canadians, half of whom are fighting to cover the basics on their bills.
Currently, the federal carbon tax adds about 17 cents per litre of gasoline, 21 cents per litre of diesel and 15 cents per cubic metre of natural gas.
The carbon tax makes filling up a minivan cost about $13 extra, filling a pickup truck cost about $20 more, and the carbon tax costs long haul truckers about $200 extra in diesel.
The average Alberta household will need to pay more than $400 extra in the carbon tax just to heat their homes this winter.
Meanwhile, the Liberal government is still scheduled to increase the carbon tax again on April 1.
Despite his failings, at least Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been clear about how much the carbon tax costs and who’s paying it.
Carney owes reporters and taxpayers a clear answer to this question about his changed carbon tax: HOW MUCH WILL IT COST?
– Franco Terrazzano is the federal director and Kris Sims is the Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation