A regular reader of the Niagara Independent who contacted me insisted that Canadians need to better understand how devastating the Liberals carbon tax is to our way of life. Photo Credit: iStock.
On Tuesday morning in the House of Commons, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre delivered a fiery appeal for support of a motion of non-confidence in the Trudeau government. Poilievre was looking to end Justin Trudeau’s nine-year stay in office and give Canadians an opportunity to vote on their government and its direction. He again promised in parliament that Canadians will be provided a clear choice at the polls, “This will be a carbon tax referendum, a carbon tax election.”
In a heated exchange later in Question Period, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau exclaimed that he looks forward to fighting a carbon tax election – but not at this time; the governing Liberals survived the non-confidence vote with the support of the MPs from Bloc Quebecois and NDP. So, the Conservatives’ “Axe the Tax” election campaign will need to wait for another day. In the meantime, Canadians will continue to pay carbon tax, and we can expect further increases with another hike set for next April 1st.
The carbon tax is the centre piece of the Liberals’ climate change policy. Last April they raised the tax 25 per cent. Their annual schedule of hikes will see the tax rise to 61 cents per litre by 2030. That figure could be more given that Trudeau just returned from the UN meetings where he signed onto a new global Pact for the Future, which is calling for countries to dramatically increase their carbon pricing. Canadians can also expect to see the government’s new $7 million “climate literacy and action” advertising campaign in media, promoting their carbon tax regime and telling us that we will like the tax increases.
The Trudeau Liberals are staunchly defending their carbon tax in the face of mounting political pressure against it – starting with how well received the Conservatives’ “Axe the Tax” promise has been with weary Canadians coping with the country’s sagging economy. Then a few weeks ago NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh pulled the plug on the Liberal-NDP deal, citing newfound criticisms of the carbon tax. The NDP Premier of B.C., David Eby, now facing the electorate in a provincial election, has made a death-bed confession for votes, saying he will consider abandoning B.C.’s consumer carbon tax.
Eby is late to the party against the tax, as earlier this year seven provincial premiers came together to speak out against Trudeau’s carbon tax hikes. Also, an opinion poll earlier this year found that seven of ten Canadians wanted carbon tax relief. Former Liberal MP Dan McTeague observed that the carbon tax once “a keystone policy of the Green Left just a few short years ago is now a political pariah.”
McTeague wrote in a recent op-ed, “Once Canadians saw what the tax actually cost, and felt its devastating impact on their ability to make ends meet, to fill their gas tanks, heat their homes, and feed their families, they were bound to turn against it. This is exactly what we’re seeing now. And with elections looming, as go the voters so go the politicians who need their votes. It seems the Carbon Tax is sinking and the rats are jumping ship.”
Economically the carbon tax is devasting. This month the Canadian Taxpayers Federation trumpeted the findings within government documents that conclude the Liberals “second carbon tax on fuels,” which was introduced last year, will have a $9 billion drag on the Canadian economy in the next five years. (Not surprisingly, this news was under-reported in the government-sponsored legacy media).
In another government document, officials calculated the “first carbon tax at the pumps and heating fuel” costs the Canadian economy $12 billion this year, and $30 billion by 2030. Using these government figures, the Fraser Institute calculates that Trudeau’s two carbon taxes will add about 54 cents per litre to the price of gas by 2030 and will have killed 94,000 jobs.
The carbon tax is increasingly impacting our pocketbooks. Canadians are all too familiar with the pain felt at the pumps and with their home fuel bills. Today, the carbon tax adds about $10 on every fill up, hitting farmers and truckers hard, and hitting commuters – twice a day. The carbon tax on home fuel is almost $300 annually, which has homeowners stressing about heating bills through the cold of the winter. To think, the Liberals have scheduled annual tax carbon hikes through to 2030 that will see these taxes nearly triple.
But all of these facts miss a significant point, according to a regular reader of the Niagara Independent who contacted me and insisted that Canadians need to better understand how devastating the Liberals carbon tax is to our way of life. Choosing to remain anonymous, our reader is a retired Ontario business owner whose 30 year-plus career in the A/C service industry involved shipping in Canada and into the United States. He contends that Canadians are far worse off than they are led to believe and says, “Few factor the compound effect of the carbon tax.”
I am sharing the business owner’s case (and due to the limited space, his text has been edited and shortened):
All businesses have costs, which must be added to the product they sell. The carbon tax is a cost, and businesses do not get a rebate for this added cost of the product and services they must recoup. Each business has other costs, such as my A/C company did – overhead costs such as rent, heating, cooling and lighting our office, staff, professional services and insurance, and the costs of purchasing and operating our service vehicles. Think about the fact that most of these costs have a carbon tax applied to them. When setting our price, we needed to cover all of these costs (our budget did not balance itself!).
So, do the math for a product where all the businesses in the supply chain have to cover their costs, which include additional carbon taxes. Let’s trace a loaf of bread from farm field to grocery cart.
- A farmer who grows wheat uses propane or diesel to dry the grain – and he also must factor costs of his farm vehicles and machinery. All fuel costs have carbon taxes applied to them.
- The wheat is transported from the farm by truck and rail – using fuel which is taxed.
- It goes to a milling company that grinds the wheat into flour – and there is use of fuels in the operation and to truck it to the next step in the process. Carbon taxed.
- It is received by a container company that will bag the flour for shipping – and then this is trucked. Operations of the company and transportation is carbon taxed.
- It goes to a bakery that produces the bread and there is use of fuels in this operation, and then to truck it to the next step. Carbon taxed.
- It is received by a distributor that then trucks it to the retail stores. This step again uses fuel in operations and transportation that will be factored in the cost of the product. It is carbon taxed.
- It is received in the retail grocery store, which is paying carbon tax for its heating, cooling, and fuel use – all factored in the cost of operations.
By the time the product makes it into the grocery cart it has been on a truck at least six or seven times, beginning with delivery of diesel fuel to the farmer, the crops taken from the field, onto the mill, and so on. At each step there is fuel being used and a carbon tax placed on that fuel – and at each step of the way of getting the product to market the businesses are marking up the cost of the product to cover their operation costs. In this example, the bread passed through seven businesses and multiple trucking companies. Each is carbon taxed (we also must factor in that the government collects GST on top of every payment of carbon tax).
And that cost of business for each of these businesses is passed onto the consumer.
So, it is not just the cost of filling our car or heating our home when we consider how much we pay in carbon taxes. Canadians’ grocery costs and their cost of living is exponentially higher because of the compounding effect the carbon tax has on businesses and their operations.
One final point to consider is regarding the comparative disadvantage a Canadian business has paying carbon tax on their operations when competing with an American business. We are either at a price disadvantage, or we are being forced to eat the costs of the tax. Because of carbon taxes, Canadian businesses are less competitive and/or less profitable than American businesses.
My thanks to this agitated retired business owner for reaching out and emphasizing this important argument on the compounding effect of the carbon tax. Point taken.
Chris George is an advocate, government relations advisor, and writer/copy editor. As president of a public relations firm established in 1994, Chris provides discreet counsel, tactical advice and management skills to CEOs/Presidents, Boards of Directors and senior executive teams in executing public and government relations campaigns and managing issues. Prior to this PR/GR career, Chris spent seven years on Parliament Hill on staffs of Cabinet Ministers and MPs. He has served in senior campaign positions for electoral and advocacy campaigns at every level of government. Today, Chris resides in Almonte, Ontario where he and his wife manage www.cgacommunications.com. Contact Chris at chrisg.george@gmail.com.
