The economics of Trudeau's carbon tax

[Anonymous]

https://scontent.fyxd1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/56381618_786208451754434_3352130646343417856_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&_nc_eui2=AeGXpk9uek_OXDICvnkE2RoFr5CKFQXzzAyK1zFQcXlQnEZ-v-JxGilS_gAfYYw9Nc6CAM_jefe8DXVhni2oj1mbEgrL1IT-m1fNVHP-af4g8A&_nc_ht=scontent.fyxd1-1.fna&oh=0aaedbea665bee45cbc1da105c4f2478&oe=5D46D35A">

[Anonymous]

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It probably does reduce emissions marginally on the backs of working families..



Anytime you raise prices rapidly people will consume less..



But, forcing people to choose between heating their homes, electricity and driving to work is amoral.



And, as we've seen in Alberta and federally it is a cash giveaway to big companies.

[Anonymous]

https://scontent.fyxd1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/56381618_786208451754434_3352130646343417856_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&_nc_eui2=AeGXpk9uek_OXDICvnkE2RoFr5CKFQXzzAyK1zFQcXlQnEZ-v-JxGilS_gAfYYw9Nc6CAM_jefe8DXVhni2oj1mbEgrL1IT-m1fNVHP-af4g8A&_nc_ht=scontent.fyxd1-1.fna&oh=0aaedbea665bee45cbc1da105c4f2478&oe=5D46D35A">

It probably does reduce emissions marginally on the backs of working families..



Anytime you raise prices rapidly people will consume less..



But, forcing people to choose between heating their homes, electricity and driving to work is amoral.



And, as we've seen in Alberta and federally it is a cash giveaway to big companies.

You are getting it Fash.  There are so much more efficient ways of reducing emissions at home and abroad besides asking the poor to subsidize the rich.

[Anonymous]

https://scontent.fyxd1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/56381618_786208451754434_3352130646343417856_n.jpg?_nc_cat=101&_nc_eui2=AeGXpk9uek_OXDICvnkE2RoFr5CKFQXzzAyK1zFQcXlQnEZ-v-JxGilS_gAfYYw9Nc6CAM_jefe8DXVhni2oj1mbEgrL1IT-m1fNVHP-af4g8A&_nc_ht=scontent.fyxd1-1.fna&oh=0aaedbea665bee45cbc1da105c4f2478&oe=5D46D35A">

It probably does reduce emissions marginally on the backs of working families..



Anytime you raise prices rapidly people will consume less..



But, forcing people to choose between heating their homes, electricity and driving to work is amoral.



And, as we've seen in Alberta and federally it is a cash giveaway to big companies.

 

[Gaon]

Trudeau Government Exempts Saudi Arabian Oil From Carbon Tax



How come in the middle of a trade spat with the Saudis, Ottawa isn't even imposing the same taxes and regulations on Saudi oil that it imposes on Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland oil?

https://capforcanada.com/trudeau-government-exempts-saudi-arabian-oil-from-carbon-tax/?fbclid=IwAR2OvEes5ROq-dzeJtbbRVOECwqybqc7gUkHHDsC6sVlTLCyZEFc5xpWSU0">https://capforcanada.com/trudeau-govern ... EFc5xpWSU0">https://capforcanada.com/trudeau-government-exempts-saudi-arabian-oil-from-carbon-tax/?fbclid=IwAR2OvEes5ROq-dzeJtbbRVOECwqybqc7gUkHHDsC6sVlTLCyZEFc5xpWSU0



The prime minister of Canada prefers OPEC oil over Canadian oil. So much so, he has decided to put Canadian oil at a competitive disadvantage.

[Anonymous]

Trudeau Government Exempts Saudi Arabian Oil From Carbon Tax



How come in the middle of a trade spat with the Saudis, Ottawa isn't even imposing the same taxes and regulations on Saudi oil that it imposes on Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland oil?

https://capforcanada.com/trudeau-government-exempts-saudi-arabian-oil-from-carbon-tax/?fbclid=IwAR2OvEes5ROq-dzeJtbbRVOECwqybqc7gUkHHDsC6sVlTLCyZEFc5xpWSU0">https://capforcanada.com/trudeau-govern ... EFc5xpWSU0">https://capforcanada.com/trudeau-government-exempts-saudi-arabian-oil-from-carbon-tax/?fbclid=IwAR2OvEes5ROq-dzeJtbbRVOECwqybqc7gUkHHDsC6sVlTLCyZEFc5xpWSU0



The prime minister of Canada prefers OPEC oil over Canadian oil. So much so, he has decided to put Canadian oil at a competitive disadvantage.

Most Canadians must not be aware that the eight hundred thousand barrels of oil Eastern Canada imports everyday are carbon tax free unlike our own domestic energy.

[Anonymous]

Trudeau Government Exempts Saudi Arabian Oil From Carbon Tax



How come in the middle of a trade spat with the Saudis, Ottawa isn't even imposing the same taxes and regulations on Saudi oil that it imposes on Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland oil?

https://capforcanada.com/trudeau-government-exempts-saudi-arabian-oil-from-carbon-tax/?fbclid=IwAR2OvEes5ROq-dzeJtbbRVOECwqybqc7gUkHHDsC6sVlTLCyZEFc5xpWSU0">https://capforcanada.com/trudeau-govern ... EFc5xpWSU0">https://capforcanada.com/trudeau-government-exempts-saudi-arabian-oil-from-carbon-tax/?fbclid=IwAR2OvEes5ROq-dzeJtbbRVOECwqybqc7gUkHHDsC6sVlTLCyZEFc5xpWSU0



The prime minister of Canada prefers OPEC oil over Canadian oil. So much so, he has decided to put Canadian oil at a competitive disadvantage.

Most Canadians must not be aware that the eight hundred thousand barrels of oil Eastern Canada imports everyday are carbon tax free unlike our own domestic energy.

Is Trudeau accepting holiday gifts from the Saudi royal family. He is the best thing that ever happened to OPEC and American oil producers.

[Anonymous]

By Lorrie Goldstein of Sun News Media



Numbers no longer add up

Provincial elections refute Trudeau's carbon tax claims



Elections in Alberta last week and Ontario last June mean Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Environment Minister Catherine Mckenna have lost a key talking point in support of carbon pricing heading into the Oct. 21 federal vote.



Last year at this time, they were able to boast, as they did incessantly, that more than 80% of Canada's population (86% actually) lived in the four provinces that already had carbon pricing — Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec.



But with the election of Premier-designate Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party in Alberta, and Premier Doug Ford and the Progressive Conservative party in Ontario, that number has been turned on its head.



Today, most of Canada's population, 59%, lives in the five provinces — Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick — that oppose Trudeau's carbon tax and are challenging it, or are about to, in court.



That means neither Trudeau nor Mckenna can now portray provincial governments opposed to their carbon tax/price as isolated hold-outs.



The fact is they now represent 50% of the provinces with almost 60% of Canada's population.



Many (although not all) legal experts believe the Trudeau government will eventually win the legal challenges against his carbon tax by the provinces opposing it.



But the fate of Trudeau's carbon tax won't be decided in the courts — given the lengthy time it will take to hear all the legal challenges and appeals — but in the Oct. 21 federal election, now exactly six months away.



Since Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has promised to abolish Trudeau's carbon tax, it will be dead on arrival if he wins a majority government.



If Trudeau wins a majority government on Oct. 21 (or a minority where he can obtain enough support from the opposition parties) his carbon tax will forge ahead.



At that time we'll presumably learn, since he's not telling us now, how much higher he plans to hike his carbon tax — currently at $20 per tonne of industrial greenhouse gas emissions, rising to $50 per tonne in 2022 — after 2022. Since the federal government has repeatedly hinted at imposing more "stringent" carbon taxes on Canadians post-2022, Trudeau should tell us going into the Oct. 21 election how much higher he intends to boost his carbon tax after 2022. For one thing, if he wins the election, he'll be in power until 2023. Surely, if it's true that, as Trudeau claims, his carbon tax is going to make most Canadian households in the provinces where he's imposed it richer because of its rebate provisions, that shouldn't be a problem. Because if Trudeau's carbon tax is going to leave most of us better off financially, surely the higher the carbon tax he imposes, the better off we'll be, right?



Back in the real world, if Trudeau's carbon tax is going to be a major issue in the Oct. 21 election — as some pollsters say it will be — then it will be one fuelled by political rhetoric rather than reality.



Everyone who's looked at the numbers knows Trudeau's current carbon price/tax isn't going to achieve the commitments he made to the international community to reduce Canada's emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 and to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.



All Trudeau's carbon tax really is, is virtue signalling.



It's only actual virtue will be — if one considers it a virtue — that it will reduce emissions more than Scheer's plan, which we haven't even seen yet.

[Anonymous]

By Dale Johnson and Allan Bonner



The carbon tax — is it just permission to pollute?



In 1965 a group of scientists presented a report to US President Lyndon Johnson warning that pollution could cause us trouble.



The Environmental Pollution Panel report cautioned "that continued accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide resulting from fossil-fuel burning would 'almost certainly cause significant changes' and 'could be deleterious from the point of view of human beings.'"



Both authors of this column were too young to know much about this. But a few years later Johnson was noting the Stop The Spadina Expressway movement in Toronto, and Bonner was playing small roles in protesting pollution during the heady days in Vancouver when Greenpeace was being founded. In Vancouver, the talk was about soft drink cans under the polar ice caps, sea levels rising, the "greenhouse effect" and just plain litter everywhere. In Toronto it was better gas mileage and fewer cars downtown. Both authors remember refuse along the Trans-Canada Highway, mile after mile.



Controversial President Richard Nixon had a practical solution. In his State of the Union Address in 1970, he said, "We can no longer afford to consider air and water common property, free to be abused by anyone without regard to the consequences. Instead, we should begin now to treat them as scarce resources, which we are no more free to contaminate than we are free to throw garbage into our neighbor's yard. This requires comprehensive new regulations. It also requires that ... the price of goods should be made to include the costs of producing and disposing of them without damage to the environment."



LBJ, Nixon, scientists, Greenpeace, the anti-freeway movement — none of them ever suggested allowing polluting rivers, the air, and ground for a fee. Fines, jail terms, and public flogging perhaps, but not paying to pollute.



We've made some progress, but haven't really tried out all the 3 Rs — Reduce, Re-use, and Recycle. We recycle perfectly good glass bottles, but isn't that nutty when we should re-use them for their entire expected life of 20 refills? We've not figured out what to do with electric cars, which may be a nuisance to recycle and which don't pay their fair share in taxes to use the roads. We fret about a way to pick up tons of plastic garbage from the oceans, but nobody has the guts to ban plastic bottles.



And that brings us to cap and trade, carbon taxes, and carbon pricing. Whatever it's called, isn't it a license to pollute? By what right (as Richard Nixon might say) does a polluting company pay a non-polluting company to keep polluting?



And will a carbon tax work? Advocates say that gas going up 5 cents a litre will cause consumers to make better environmental decisions. Really? What about the last 50 years of increases in gas prices? They coincide with our generation buying gas-guzzling SUVS. Do we really think this increase in price will cause a shift away from small gasoline engines, used in landscaping, which cause up to 20 per cent of urban air pollution?



The distance between the economic dis-incentive (5 cents a litre) and the desired human behaviour (switching to hand clippers or small cars) is too far apart. Plus the dis-incentive is too small.



The solution is in plain sight. Use Richard Nixon's formula — regulation, legislation, and full production and recycling without harm to the environment. Dale Johnson and Allan Bonner are award-winning journalists who have consulted to heads of government,

environmental groups, and senior private sector leaders on some of the major public policy issues of our times, including acid rain, crossborder pollution, the Rio Conference, NAFTA, overfishing, European Union, and a host of other issues.

[Anonymous]

Don't be so sure a carbon tax will survive the Supreme Court



Back in 2011, the Supreme Court of Canada nixed a proposed project by former prime minister Stephen Harper. The Conservatives wanted to create a single national securities regulator, but the Supreme Court preferred the provinces' own securities regulators over Harper's federal one. Their reasoning? Because Section 92 of the Constitution Act, 1867 gives the provinces the exclusive jurisdiction over property and civil rights within their provinces, i.e. the regulation of the activities of their provincial companies and businesses.



There's a lesson in this for the Liberal government and their bid to save the national carbon tax. During a recent CTV Question Period appearance, Liberal Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna bluntly stated that if Saskatchewan's Premier Scott Moe, Ontario's Doug Ford and Alberta's Jason Kenney pursued legal action against the Liberals' proposed national carbon tax legislation they'd lose in court.



McKenna provided no constitutional basis for this claim. It could end up being the case that Supreme Court of Canada will ultimately decide that the Liberals' proposed carbon taxation legislation is unconstitutional for the same reason it nixed Harper's securities regulator ― because it is an infringement on the provinces' exclusive jurisdiction over property and civil rights within their own provinces.



Section 91 of the Constitution Act sets out the subject matters over which the federal government has jurisdiction. There is no specific reference to the federal government having exclusive jurisdiction over the regulation of the entire Canadian environment.



Then, under Section 92, with respect to environmental issues, the provincial governments have jurisdiction over: Property and civil rights in the province, which gives the power to the provinces to regulate most companies, businesses, commercial activities and industrial activities within the provinces. It follows that such power includes regulating the emissions from such activities.



Likewise, when it comes to management of provincial Crown lands the power is given to the provinces to regulate mining and lumber activities and accordingly the emissions from such mining and lumber activities. The provinces are also responsible for all matters of a local or private nature within that province.



In determining whether the Liberals' proposed carbon tax legislation is constitutional, the Supreme Court will look at the pith and substance of the legislation, in other words the actual purpose and effects of this legislation.



The Trudeau government will likely argue that its proposed legislation is constitutional because the federal government alone has the federal jurisdiction to regulate the entire Canadian environment, not the provinces.



They'll also likely argue that in fulfilling its purpose to regulate the environment, it has the power to regulate all commercial and industrial activities in Canada, which includes imposing a carbon tax regime on such activities. By imposing this carbon tax regime, the effect of this policy will be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Canada, moderate climate change and hence improve the entire Canadian environment.



The problem with this argument is that the provinces, according to Section 92 of the Constitution, have the exclusive jurisdiction to regulate the activities of the companies and businesses in their provinces.



Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan may be able to successfully argue that the actual effects of the Liberals' proposed carbon tax legislation is the imposition of  carbon taxes which will have no effect on positively affecting climate change and regulating the environment.  Such carbon taxes, on the other hand, will make these provincial businesses non-competitive, unnecessarily increase their costs, and force them out of business with the resulting loss of jobs and investment.



McKenna shouldn't act so certain that a legal showdown with Moe, Ford and Kenney will end in her government's favour.



Mitch Wolfe, a graduate of University of Toronto Law School, is a commentator and analyst and author of Trump: How He Captured The Trump White House.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/guest-column-dont-be-so-sure-a-carbon-tax-will-survive-the-supreme-court?fbclid=IwAR3E_A1sII1B6hxJmliT50zqYUDtMvHpqgcPYG5CW_9l2kW6tUaaSyZ75h0">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnis ... UaaSyZ75h0">https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/guest-column-dont-be-so-sure-a-carbon-tax-will-survive-the-supreme-court?fbclid=IwAR3E_A1sII1B6hxJmliT50zqYUDtMvHpqgcPYG5CW_9l2kW6tUaaSyZ75h0



I am not confident at all the legal challenge against Trudeau's carbon sales tax will work. The surest way to get rid of it, is to get rid of Trudeau.

[Anonymous]

By Kenneth Green, environmental analyst at the Fraser Institute



Myth & reality of carbon pricing



In recent eco-news, Canada's Ecofiscal Commission, a self-appointed group that pushes pollution-pricing (believing that such mechanisms are superior to regulatory approaches), recently released a report called "10 Myths about Carbon Pricing in Canada."



As an answer to criticisms of the Trudeau government's carbon-pricing plan, it falls short.



Why? Because it spends too much time responding to claims no one is making, or to strawman versions of legitimate concerns, while avoiding discussing the substantive criticisms.



Due to space constraints, I'll focus on two of their "myths" that are not so mythical.



Ecofiscal's Myth No. 6 is that "Carbon Pricing is a Cash Grab."



This is "myth" because Ottawa will return all carbon-pricing revenue to the provinces, with 90% in lump sum rebates to households.



The rebate part is true, but the idea that the feds won't get a cut not. Ottawa will capture revenues from the increased GST collected due to higher prices caused by carbon taxes.



One estimate suggests the GST on top of the carbon price in 2019 could bring in $250 million in GST revenues, which will increase as the carbon tax escalates to $50 per tonne in 2022.



And of course, provinces with a Provincial Sales Tax will also see additional revenues, even if they also rebate all the revenue of the carbon tax itself.



Of course, provinces with existing carbon-pricing programs deemed equal to the federal backstop are under no such obligation to return all revenues, as we've seen in B.C., which abandoned revenue neutrality five years into its carbon tax.



According to Ecofiscal's Myth No. 9, it's a myth that "we can use other, better policies to shrink our emissions."



For evidence, the authors construct a false comparison.



They argue carbon pricing is more efficient than traditional regulations — but they don't address the problem, that the government is not replacing regulations with a carbon tax, but is adding the tax on top of regulation.



Here, Ecofiscal really fails in its mandate.



While they advocate for carbon pricing, they ignore the fact that by maintaining and expanding its regulatory reach, the government is eliminating the conditions that make for an efficient carbon price.



As analysis shows, none of the provinces that implemented carbon pricing did so in lieu of regulations.



And after implementing its federal carbon price, the Trudeau government plans to apply a "Clean Fuel Standard," which would "incent the use of a broad range of low carbon fuels, energy sources and technologies, such as electricity, hydrogen, and renewable fuels" and "establish lifecycle carbon intensity requirements separately for liquid, gaseous and solid fuels" and "not differentiate between crude oil types produced in Canada or imported" and "complement the pan-canadian approach to pricing carbon pollution."



Some optimistic (and no doubt well-meaning) economists tout the "grand bargain" of exchanging regulations for carbon pricing.



I have heard this argument since I started studying climate policy in 2006.



But in more than 20 years studying climate policy in the U.S. and Canada, I have never seen such a bargain put on the table because environmentalists don't want a grand bargain. They don't want to bargain, period.



They want all-of-the above — eco-justice, fuel standards, vehicle standards, building standards, green-power spending and a carbon tax.



From an efficiency standpoint, that's pretty much the worst climate option on the table.

[Anonymous]

In five years, Trudeau's useless virtue signalling carbon sales tax will cost four provinces $6.2 billion and rising.



By Lorrie Goldstein of Sun News Media



$6.21B TAX BUNDLE

Trudeau's carbon plan to collect annually by '23



TORONTO — Ottawa's non-partisan parliamentary budget office has finally given Canadians some independent numbers on the impact of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's carbon tax on the four provinces — so far — where he's imposed it.



The report by economic analyst Nasreddine Ammar says carbon pricing will raise taxes $2.63 billion this year in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick, rising to $6.21 billion in 2023-24.



Most of that money will come from the impact of the carbon tax on gasoline for residential and business use, home heating fuels and electricity rates — $2.43 billion this year, rising to $5.77 billion in 2023-24.



The rest will come from indirect charges paid by industrial emitters that will eventually be passed along to consumers in higher retail prices.



The lion's share of the money, over 75%, will be paid by consumers living in Ontario, the largest province, although households in Saskatchewan will incur the highest annual costs because of its intensive use of fossil fuel energy.



The PBO report also provides an independent analysis of whether the carbon tax's rebate system will leave consumers better or worse off financially.



It estimates most households in the four provinces will receive more in annual rebates than they pay in carbon taxes, except for the top 20% (based on income) in Ontario, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, who will pay more in carbon taxes than they receive in rebates.



For those households, costs are predicted to exceed rebates in Ontario by $45 annually starting in 2019-20, rising to $99 annually in 2023-24.



In Saskatchewan, top-earning households will pay $50 more annually in 2019-20 rising to $113 annually in 2023-24, and in New Brunswick, $13 more annually in 2019-20 rising to $14 in 2023-2024.



Because part of the carbon tax rebate depends on volatile export markets, the PBO developed an alternative scenario in which only total household costs are returned to consumers as rebates, excluding the export portion from the incentive payments.



Under that scenario, the top 40% of households by income would pay more in carbon taxes than they receive in benefits in Ontario and New Brunswick, while the top 20% would pay more in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.



In this example, the costs of the carbon tax not covered by rebates in Ontario would be anywhere from $19 annually in 2019-20 to $188 annually in 2023-24, for higher-earning households.



In New Brunswick the range would be from $17 more in 2019-20 to $114 in 2023-24; in Saskatchewan from $73 more in 201920 to $142 in 2023-24 and in Manitoba, from $41 in 2019-20 to $91 in 2023-24.



These estimates presume Trudeau will honour his promise to keep his carbon tax revenue neutral and that his carbon price for industrial greenhouse gas emissions remains on its current schedule, rising from $20 per tonne of emissions this year to $50 per tonne in 2022-23.



Trudeau hasn't said what he plans to do with his carbon price after that, although his government has talked about increasing the "stringency" of the carbon tax post 2022-23.



Trudeau will also impose his carbon tax on the Yukon and Nunavut in July 2019, and could soon be doing it in Alberta as well, if Premier-designate Jason Kenney's United Conservative Party scraps defeated NDP premier Rachel Notley's carbon tax, as Kenney vowed he would during the recent Alberta election.

[Anonymous]

I saw that sickening Environment Minister, Catherine Mckenna on a newsclip. Anyone that disagrees with Trudeau's useless carbon cash grab is a denier. This is how this government deals with any criticism of their bad policies. You are a denier, a racist, a white separatist supporter, an Islamophobe. Canadians deserve a lot better than Trudeau's aversion to open and frank debate.

[Anonymous]

There has never been a revenue neutral or regulation neutral carbon tax imposed anywhere and Trudeau's cash grab is no different.



PM really shovelling it

Saying carbon tax 'revenue neutral' just false



Before you accept Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's claim his carbon tax is going to make almost everyone richer, you might want to factor in that you'll be paying the federal goods and services tax (GST) on top of it.



And that this will pour hundreds of millions of additional dollars into federal coffers from Canadian taxpayers annually, despite Trudeau's claim his carbon tax is "revenue neutral" for his government.



It isn't, as the federal Conservatives have pointed out.



Because the 5% GST is applied to a broad range of goods and services after all other taxes and prices have been included, it will also apply to Trudeau's carbon tax, as a tax on a tax. (Or, in some cases, a tax on a tax on a tax.)



The same is true for provincial sales taxes, when it comes to assessing the full impact of Trudeau's carbon tax of $20 per tonne of industrial greenhouse gas emissions this year, rising to $50 per tonne in 2022 and after that, if Trudeau wins re-election on Oct. 21, who knows?



For Ontario households, that means in calculating the true cost of Trudeau's carbon tax on us, we have to add on the 13% HST (5% GST, plus 8% provincial sales tax) to it, for gasoline, natural gas and many other goods and services.



Ironically, the Ontario government is also getting increased revenue from Trudeau's carbon tax, which Premier Doug Ford, who's challenging Trudeau's carbon tax in court, doesn't want.



A report by the federal Parliamentary Budget Office last week which said Trudeau's carbon tax would raise $2.63 billion this year, rising to $6.21 billion annually in 2023 in the four provinces where he has imposed it — Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick — did not include the impact of the GST or provincial sales taxes in the costs to the public.



Since the GST applies to fossil fuels, such as gasoline, diesel and natural gas, which will generate the lion's share of carbon tax revenues in these four provinces ($2.4 billion this year, rising to $5.77 billion in 2023), it's obvious the impact on household budgets of the GST alone will be huge.



The Parliamentary Budget Office itself reported in December 2017 that the 5% GST would rake in a total of $501 million-$580 million for the Trudeau government for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 fiscal years, just in the four provinces that at that time had carbon pricing — Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec.



With Trudeau's federal carbon tax/price scheme now almost fully in place across the country, the 5% GST is going to be worth billions of dollars in increased revenues to the feds over time.



The other significant effect of the GST/HST being applied to carbon pricing is that it will impact on Trudeau's claim most Canadians will come out ahead because of the federal carbon tax rebate system.



In some cases, the margins between what the Trudeau government says Canadians will pay in carbon taxes and what they'll get back in rebates is already thin.



Once you factor federal and provincial sales taxes being applied to carbon pricing to evaluate its true costs to Canadian households, those margins will be even thinner.



In some cases, Canadians who the Trudeau government says will be getting more money in rebates than they spend on carbon taxes, will be getting less.



Something Trudeau & Co. would prefer you to not think about.

[Anonymous]

Your money being wasted on carbon tax ads



Our tax dollars shouldn't be used for partisan political advertising to win our votes or change our minds. But it is an election year in Canada, and apparently, our provincial politicians think it is OK to do so.



We are now seeing millions of wasted tax dollars spent on partisan "government" advertising about the carbon tax. Your tax dollars are being used to try and buy your support.



I don't know what makes me more upset when I have the radio on — having to listen to former Toronto Maple Leafs players succeeding with other Stanley Cup playoff teams or hearing the never-ending taxpayer-funded radio ads about the carbon tax in between periods.



Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was elected with a mandate to stop the spending of tax dollars on partisan advertising. The Stephen Harper government had continued the excessive expenditure on partisan government advertising that occurred in the Liberal government that preceded it.



In 2016 Treasury Board President Scott Brison introduced new rules to curb much of the partisan advertising by government. This was a step in the right direction. But the provinces haven't followed suit.



Former Ontario premier dalton Mcguinty addressed the practice of partisan, taxpayer-funded government advertising in 2004 by referring all such advertising for review to the provincially auditor general.



Ironically, his successor Kathleen Wynne reversed the partisan ban in 2015, and now Ontario Premier doug Ford is buying advertising like he is a guest star in a Mad Men episode.



Last month, Ford's government launched a massive taxpayer-funded advertising blitz attacking Trudeau's carbon-pricing plan.



It is on TV. It's on the radio. He has gone so far as to mandate gas stations post taxpayer-funded stickers that attack the Trudeau plan. But this waste of tax dollars isn't limited to Ontario.



Alberta Premier Jason Kenney campaigned on a promise to spend $20 million of Albertan's tax dollars fighting the Trudeau plan. More provinces are looking to follow their lead.



Any Premier has the right to fight the Prime Minister and do everything in their power to cause them to lose an election. But don't spend one dollar of my money doing it.



Talk to the traditional media for free and post your side of the story on social media — but don't put your hand in my pocket to pay for an ad campaign. It's a waste of my money.



Ford was elected on a mandate to stop the wasteful spending of Kathleen Wynne. One of his first acts as Premier should have been to restore the Mcguinty ad rules and reverse the terrible decision by Wynne.



Instead, he is acting precisely like Wynne and wasting our tax dollars.



Now we have dueling climate change plans from Ford et al. and Trudeau and all of us are stuck paying for partisan advertising instead of getting the services we deserve.



We need politicians to spend our tax dollars more wisely. We need a plan to deal with climate change. We need an honest election debate about this.



Our cities are congested with traffic and need new and improved infrastructure, public transit and highways. Our provinces need increased resources to fund a health care system facing a generational crisis. Our youth need improved access to education.



Our taxes pay for these things, which are the real pillars by which Canadians can move ahead economically and improve their quality of life.



Taxes should provide the government with the resources to give us the tools we need to create jobs and economic wealth, leading to more people earning more money and with that, a higher standard of living.



Conservatives and Liberals can both agree that our taxes should never be used for partisan advertising and buying our votes at election time.