Hoodwink: Ottawa claims 90% of the money from Trudeau's carbon tax will be returned through rebate cheques set to begin arriving next Canada Day, and that it doesn’t keep the other 10%.
These cheques supposedly reflect what an average family would spend on gasoline for their vehicle and oil for their furnaces.
What don't they cover? All the goods and services that will inevitably go up in price.
Fact: Carbon taxes paid by industry, whether it be a grocer, plumbing service, or the electrical grid, are passed on to the consumer.
This fact the Trudeau/NDP axis conveniently leaves out.
But all the hoodwinking in the world will not change the negative economic consequences destined for any country run by a government incompetent — or could it just be brutal? — enough to ignore it.
One country that hasn't ignored this fact is the United States. Nearly ten years ago, the US Congressional Budget Office clearly pointed out the inevitable steps leading to economic decline, with the first being the imposition of a carbon tax:
[S]uch a tax would have a negative effect on the economy. The higher prices it caused would
diminish the purchasing power of people’s earnings, effectively reducing their real
(inflation-adjusted) wages. Lower real wages would have the net effect of reducing the
amount that people worked, thus decreasing the overall supply of labor. Investment
would also decline, further reducing the economy’s total output.
–Effects of a Carbon Tax on the Economy and the Environment, May 2013
See? It’s like elementary economics.
But let's go back to the 90% being graciously returned to us by our noble leader — I mean, from our heating oil and gasoline carbon taxes. But what about the 10%? Where does that go? And, if it’s not too much to ask, why take the 90% in the first place?
Curiously enough, in November the CBC reported that the Government of Nova Scotia hadn't submitted any plan for carbon. It turns out that was false. Surprised?
Nova Scotia actually released its plan for a carbon tax back in August. And it was good, insofar as any carbon tax can be good. It aimed to appease the bizarre carbon-hating mob in Ottawa, and to be easy on the wallets of hard-working Nova Scotian families. On top of that, the taxes would have stayed in Nova Scotia.
So what gives? Wait. Let's go back to that 10%.
The federal government claims it doesn't keep it. Well, that's a relief, right?
Wrong: The feds get to choose what non-profit organisation, university, or municipality to send the money to.
Interesting! So, organisations that yelp Trudeau's prognostications of poverty and death will get a bonus? Ok, now it's making more sense.
In perspective:
Climate-change lobby groups spend loads of money to get our bureaucrats to swallow all kinds of green fantasies. Solar’s the solution? Wind turbines are practical and beautiful? “Sequestering” is just unacceptable?
The Climate Institute, a climate-change lobby group here in Canada, actually receives $4.7 million a year from our government as an operating budget.
Wait? A government office giving a lobby group an operating budget?
How did that happen? Lobbying pressure, perhaps, from other, larger, international climate lobbyists? How about this one from California that is known to give loads of cash to the Democrats in the United States?
Paying an extra 14¢/L at the pump to inflate the bureaucratic machine? The PPC says no.
Forcing struggling families to pay 17¢/L more for furnace oil, or freeze? The PPC says no.
Electrical blackouts to appease lobbyists who use faulty data? The PPC says no.
The PPC believes in a slim, healthy governmental waistline.
The Liberal/NDP axis believes in an imponderable, never-ending WASTE line.
What do you believe in?
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References
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/113th-congress-2013-2014/reports/Carbon_One-Column.pdf
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/federal-carbon-tax-gas-oil-diesel-rebate-1.6660132
https://novascotia.ca/news/release/?id=20220819001
https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/app/secure/ocl/lrs/do/clntSmmry?clientOrgCorpNumber=369191 (Click on Gov't Funding)
https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/app/secure/ocl/lrs/do/clntSmmry?clientOrgCorpNumber=360933
https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/citizens-climate-lobby/