Carbon Taxes Add To The Cost Of Everything

Called the "Just Transition" by the Trudeau Liberals, or what should be called the "Justin Transition", in keeping with Justin's climate change ideology, along with his fanatical environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, is the plan to shut down the oil and gas industry in Western Canada. The transition is the idea that the all the jobs that are lost in the industry are to be replaced by clean, green jobs. There is no word of how the billions of dollars that will be lost to the economy will be replaced, where exactly those jobs are going to come from, or how the dependence and cost of foreign imports of oil will be reduced.

So what we have is a dedication to destruction of Canada's economy to show how virtuous we are in the climate change arena, grossly overestimating the attention of the rest of the world to anything Canada does. The emissions of carbon by Canada are 1.5% of all global emissions. Russia, India China and the United States account for 55%. Only the U.S., at 14%, has indicated any desire to reduce them, although there are no plans of a Canada-like economic suicide. The U.K and Germany have both recently pushed their carbon reduction plans further down the road.

In 2018, Trudeau himself acknowledged that even if Canada stopped everything tomorrow, and the other countries didn't have any solutions, it wouldn't make a big difference. The Parliamentary Budget Office has said that Canada's own emissions are not large enough to materially impact climate change.

Carbon taxes, increases the cost of gas, fuel oil, electricity, and everything that has to be transported by truck or rail, which is just about everything. The Parliamentary Budget Officer also said that the average family is now paying $710 per year more than they are getting back in rebates. Because GST applies to the higher costs of energy, GST taxes also increased. On top of that, the cost of the bureaucracy to administer all this costs the taxpayers many millions of dollars more.

The second carbon tax that kicked in on July 1, 2023 is charged to the energy producers if they don't reduce the carbon content of their fuels to a stipulated level. The costs are then passed on to the consumer, with no rebates. British Columbia has its own carbon tax which was increased on April 1, 2023 at 31 cents per litre, which added to the federal tax of 19.4 cents per litre, makes it one of the most expensive places in the country to fill up. The total cost of government taxes on a litre of gas will be 69.4 cents by 2030. In the U.S. total federal and state taxes average 11.7 cents per litre, with no signs of any increase.

Although liquid natural gas (LNG) projects have gone ahead in BC for exports to Asia, any idea of projects on the East Coast to supply Europe, whose relationship with their supplier, Russia became made more tenuous after their war with Ukraine, was shot down by Trudeau in August 2022 supposedly as not economically feasible. Germany was told that there never been a strong business case for liquefied natural gas exports from Canada. Japan was told the same. This was without any real thought or analysis by anyone knowledgeable on the subject. And in March, Spanish energy giant Repsol SA withdrew from a planned LNG project in New Brunswick because of federal government obstructionism.

Due to pressure from Liberal MPs in the Atlantic provinces, and not wanting to lose seats there in the next federal election, the Trudeau government has just temporarily eliminated the carbon tax on home heating oil for three years. This mainly benefits consumers in Atlantic Canada who rely on this form of fossil fuel more than the rest of the country. This obviously panders to Maritime voters for the next election period. Since carbon taxes are slated to go up every year, when the tax holiday is over the carbon tax will have gone up over 69%. This backtracking on one of the key elements of the Liberal climate change agenda has prompted other provinces to question why this change only applies to home heating oil and not for other forms of home heating like cleaner and greener natural gas and hydro electricity that is used in their provinces. This comes at a time when worries about inflation and the cost of living are increasingly occupying Canadians.

The Conservatives filed a motion in the House of Commons to exempt all forms of home heating, not just heating oil, from the federal carbon tax. The New Democrates voted in favour while the Liberals and the Bloc Quebecois voted against it. Justin Trudeau slammed the NDP for siding with the Conservatives in calling for the government to scrap the carbon tax on all forms of home heating, saying that New Democrats have deceived “millions of progressives” across Canada. Canada's premiers at a meeting in Halifax also called for fair treatment and for the government to extend the tax exemption or eliminate it altogether. “As long as I’m the environment minister, there will be no more exemptions to carbon pricing,” fanatical Environment Minister Guilbeault declared. He accused Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of having no “moral decency" on a private Conservative member's bill that had proceeded to the Senate to exempt farmers from carbon taxes on propane and natural gas used to heat greenhouses and barns. Saskatchewan has introduced legislation to stop SaskEnergy, the Crown-owned gas utility, from collecting the carbon tax on natural gas.

The Liberals claim that the temporary exemption on heating oil is to allow the users time to switch to heat pumps and are making rebates available. But the thousands of dollars needed to install a whole new heating system in a home before any rebate is paid is an obstacle for many home owners. As well, the installation of heat pumps is not a straightforward process. The construction of the home, the existing heating system, and the selection of the type of heat pump are all factors that complicate it. A home energy assessment is needed and some insurance companies require a backup heating system to ensure that there is no damage due to frozen pipes, etc. if the heat pump fails to do its job in very cold weather.