Friday 6 July 2018

CANADA ROLLS BACK THE CARBON TAX


Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford on Tuesday cancelled what amounts to a $2 billion a year tax on Ontarians by scrapping all of the government subsidy programs funded by former premier Kathleen Wynne’s cap-and-trade scheme.



Cap and trade, a carbon tax by another name, raises prices on goods and services rather than the taxes on them.

“Every cent from the cap-and-trade slush fund is money that has been taken out of the pockets of Ontario families and businesses,”  Ford said in a written statement, adding he was fulfilling his election promise to scrap the Liberals’ “cash grab” designed to fund “big government programs” that “do nothing for the environment.”

“We believe that this money belongs back in the pockets of people,” Ford said. “Cancelling the cap-and-trade carbon tax will result in lower prices at the gas pump, on your home heating bills and on virtually every other product you buy.”

Ford cited a 2016 report by Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk which concluded that despite its $8-billion price tag from 2017 to 2020, Wynne’s cap-and-trade scheme would not significantly lower Ontario’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Ford’s cancellation of Wynne’s Climate Action Plan that was to spend $8.3 billion over five years from cap-and-trade revenues, means the cancellation of everything from government subsidies of up to $14,000 for people who buy electric cars, to some public transit projects.

Ford said his government will honour arrangements, orders and contracts that have already been signed for things like energy efficient insulation and window retrofits, but all other initiatives will only be funded on a case-by-case basis from general tax revenues, after the PCs complete their value-for-money audit of Ontario’s finances.

Full story

 

2) Canada’s Carbon Tax Racket Is Coming To An End
Toronto Sun, 25 June 2018


Malcolm Candice

It looks like the game is up and the Liberal Party's carbon tax racket is coming apart at the seams.



As recently as early 2018, it seemed like a forgone conclusion that the Liberals would impose their carbon tax from coast to coast. The Trudeau government mandated the tax hike but ordered the provinces to impose and administer the tax.

It’s crafty politics, since the provincial governments, not Trudeau and his team of climate zealots, would carry the burden of imposing the largest tax increase in a generation.

The governments of both Ontario (out-going Liberal Premier Kathleen Wynne) and Alberta (the NDP’s Rachel Notley) won election victories without mentioning the tax, only to quickly impose it after being elected.

The sole glimmer of hope for Canadian taxpayers came from Saskatchewan.

First, Premier Brad Wall firmly told the Trudeau government that he refused to impose the tax. If the feds wanted to force carbon taxes onto Saskatchewan, they’d have to do it in court.

Wall retired last year, and his successor Scott Moe has picked up right where Wall left off.

“The carbon tax plan is wrong for our province,” said Moe in a recent speech. “As an economic plan, it’s a total disaster. As an environmental plan, it’s not worth the paper that David Suzuki’s University of Alberta honorary degree is written on.”

Meanwhile in Ontario, former PC Leader Patrick Brown included carbon taxes in his platform, despite the tax being deeply unpopular. After the ousting of Brown as leader, he was replaced by the outspoken carbon tax critic Doug Ford.

On June 7, Ford was elected in a landslide, and will become Ontario Premier on June 29. He’s pledged to scrap the $2 billion carbon pricing scheme and pull Ontario out of the notoriously fraudulent cap-and-trade system with Quebec and California.

We’re also less than a year away from the provincial election in Alberta, where polls show that United Conservative leader Jason Kenney holds a commanding lead and is favoured to oust the NDP government.

Kenney is a fierce critic of carbon taxes, and has vowed to work with Ford and Moe to challenge the constitutionality of Trudeau’s tax mandate.

Just like that, the tables have turned in Canada.

Full post



 

 We're Finally Told What Trudeau's Carbon Tax Will Cost Us. Are You Sitting Down?
Financial Post, 27 June 2018  


Kenneth Green

Households in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia will be hit with more than $1,000 of carbon tax per year, while those in British Columbia, Quebec and Manitoba will pay around $650

It took some poking and prodding and (finally) committee testimony, but now we know what the bill will be for a $50-per-tonne carbon tax, similar to one the federal Liberals plan to impose. In a report to the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, University of Calgary economics professor Jennifer Winter revealed the bottom line of a $50-per-tonne carbon price.

Using energy-consumption data from Statistics Canada, and imputing prices from average household expenditure on transportation fuels and provincial gasoline prices, Winter calculated the impact of a a $50-per-tonne model of a carbon tax on a typical Canadian household across different provinces. Far from being painless as advertised, the costs to households will be significant.

Three provinces — Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia — will be hit with more than $1,000 of carbon tax per year to comply with the $50-per-tonne carbon tax Ottawa has mandated for 2022. Nova Scotia ($1,120) and Alberta ($1,111) will have the highest bills, followed by Saskatchewan ($1,032), New Brunswick ($963), Newfoundland ($859) and Prince Edward Island ($788). The average household in Ontario will pay $707 a year to comply with the carbon tax once its fully implemented.

Who gets the lowest bill? British Columbia ($603 per year), Quebec ($662) and Manitoba ($683). Simply put, households in provinces with the lowest bills will pay just a bit more than half compared to households in the hardest-hit provinces.

But it gets worse, since most experts say carbon prices must continue to increase sharply to effectively lower emissions. At $100 a tonne, for example, households in Alberta will pony up $2,223, in Saskatchewan they’ll pay $2,065 and in Nova Scotia, $2,240. In fact, at $100 a tonne, the average price for households in all provinces is well north of $1,000 per year.

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