Every time Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he chose a carbon tax as the most efficient way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as opposed to government regulations and expensive subsidies, he’s spouting nonsense.
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In fact, Trudeau imposed his carbon tax on top of government regulations and subsidies — part of 149 different government programs on which the Liberal government says it is spending more than $200 billion to implement.
Let’s consider the impact of just one of those programs — the Trudeau government’s clean electricity regulations, intended to reduce emissions in that sector to net zero by 2035.
As reported by The Canadian Press, the Ontario government is urging the feds to amend these regulations because, according to the province’s Independent Electricity System Operator, they would cost the province an additional $35 billion to implement by 2050.
The controversy is over the use of natural gas, the cleanest burning fossil fuel, which is necessary to operate Ontario’s electricity system efficiently because wind and solar power cannot provide base load power to the grid on demand.
As the clean electricity regulations are written, the IESO warns, it will be impossible to meet Ontario’s need for 75% more electricity generation by 2050, to power the supply chain being created in Ontario for the electric vehicle industry, as well as the added power needed for the explosive growth in artificial intelligence.
Alberta is facing the same issue.
Premier Danielle Smith estimates the cost to the province’s electricity consumers to meet the clean electricity regulations could be $200 billion to $425 billion.
That’s due to the fact Alberta, unlike Ontario, doesn’t have clean energy sources such as nuclear and hydro power to help defray the costs of the transition to green energy.
Smith says computer modelling suggests the costs to Canadian electricity consumers to comply with the clean electricity regulations could be $1 trillion to $1.7 trillion.
The federal government argues that given the financial aid it is giving to the provinces to make the transition to green energy in the electricity sector, they should be able to reach the federal targets without putting any onerous burden on electricity ratepayers.
The underlying point, however, is that Trudeau’s climate change plan has a lot more moving parts to it than his carbon tax.