{"id":16001,"date":"2024-02-03T10:58:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-03T15:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=16001"},"modified":"2024-09-12T00:29:24","modified_gmt":"2024-09-12T04:29:24","slug":"liberals-putting-lipstick-on-a-very-ugly-carbon-tax-pig","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/?p=16001","title":{"rendered":"Liberals putting lipstick on \u201ca very ugly carbon tax pig\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Niagara Independent, February 2, 2024 \u2013<\/em> The Liberal government is looking to rebrand the carbon tax, wanting to enhance the promotion of their quarterly rebate cheques. They want to re-explain the significance of their \u201ccarbon pricing system\u201d because, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has confessed, the Liberals are losing the communications battle on the carbon tax. This news was given front page headline treatment by the Liberal-friendly mouthpiece Toronto Star as Members of Parliament were returning to Ottawa from their Christmas recess. It became the focal point for the opening salvos of the parliamentary session.<\/p>\n

The Liberals are increasingly concerned that their government\u2019s prized climate policy is being maligned and misunderstood because of Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre\u2019s cross country \u201cAxe the Tax\u201d tour. Poilievre has been speaking to packed audiences, pledging to rid Canadians of their carbon tax burden. According to \u201ca senior government official\u201d who leaked the rebranding exercise to the Star\u2019s news writers, the Liberals hope to dampen the enthusiasm for Poilievre\u2019s message by changing the name of their rebates and directing Canadian banks to highlight in some way the quarterly payments.<\/p>\n

Poilievre responded to the Liberals\u2019 communications and marketing strategy with an age-old idiom: \u201cNo matter how much lipstick the Liberals try to put on a very ugly carbon tax pig, it doesn\u2019t change the fact Trudeau\u2019s carbon tax is a very costly, ugly, hungry pig.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reaction to the Liberals\u2019 news from across the country was similarly dismissive. A lead editorial in Sun Media opined: \u201cThe Trudeau Liberals keep clinging to the idea, borne of their political desperation, that if they can just properly explain their carbon tax to Canadians, they\u2019ll flock to it in support.\u201d Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe scoffed: \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s Canadians who are confused about the carbon tax.\u201d David Jacobs, an active social media political commentator from Toronto reacted, \u201cWhat Canadians hate more than taxes is a government that takes them for fools.\u201d Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation sniped: \u201cLipstick on a pig. Stop the gimmicks. Scrap the carbon tax.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in Ottawa at the Conservative caucus meeting on Sunday, Poilievre announced that cancelling the carbon tax is his number one priority. The Conservatives will champion carbon tax exemptions for farmers, who today are paying extraordinary amounts of carbon tax on the natural gas and propane needed to dry grains, or to heat and cool livestock barns. Poilievre also wants to see the carbon tax exemptions on home fuel that has been awarded to the Atlantic provinces to be extended to all Canadians.<\/p>\n

The Conservatives used the first days back in the House of Commons to blast the Liberals\u2019 planned marketing of their rebate payments, accusing them of being \u201cpathologically obsessed\u201d with their carbon tax. Poilievre questioned Trudeau on the amount of carbon tax he paid for his Jamaican Christmas vacation and chastised him for his non-answers to Canadians: \u201cThat is high-tax, high-flying, high-carbon hypocrisy.\u201d Poilievre asked Trudeau about Edmontonians who suffered minus-50-degree temperatures recently, \u201cWill he at least allow people to heat their homes without his tax?\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Liberals remain unmoved; the carbon tax for Canadians is \u201ca price on pollution\u201d that is imposed to ensure the country achieves its 2030 and 2050 emission targets. Conservatives maintain the carbon tax is not a climate policy, but simply another tax that is hurting individuals and families \u2013 and the nation\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

The carbon tax is a tax impacting Canadians\u2019 cost of living<\/b><\/p>\n

The carbon tax increases the cost of everything in Canada. It raises prices for Canadians not just on gas and home fuel \u2013 it raises prices on everything. Every business pays it and will pass it on to their customers so, essentially, it is a hidden tax on all goods and services. It hits farmers and truckers hard, and it hits commuters to work \u2013 twice a day. Homeowners stress about heating bills through the cold of the winter and cannot imagine the costs tripling in the next six years. It adds to the cost of a Tim Hortons\u2019 coffee, food in your grocery cart, and housing construction costs. A Finance Canada analysis concluded the carbon tax disproportionately impacts lower and middle-income households.<\/p>\n

Today, the carbon tax adds $10 on every fill up and almost $300 annually for home heating fuel. In the next six years there are scheduled annual tax hikes that will nearly triple these totals by 2030. And there is an additional Clean Fuel Standard carbon tax \u2013 and GST applied on top of this.<\/p>\n

In answer to these facts, government spokespeople counter that Canadians get back in rebate payments the taxes they pay at the pump and for home fuel. They say 80 per cent of households get all tax that is collected back. However, the government is not factoring the additional hidden taxes that Canadians pay extra for in the goods and services they purchase. The government is also not factoring the huge drain the carbon tax is having on business investment and economic activity, which the Parliamentary Budget Office reports will result in 60 per cent of households ending up worse off. For example, with rebates in, Ontario households will be in the hole $150 monthly in 2030.<\/p>\n

An environmental must or a tax bust?<\/b><\/p>\n

Here are a few other factors that the Trudeau government must explain to Canadians when they rebrand the rebate payments and re-introduce their \u201cprice on pollution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Trudeau government\u2019s schedule of carbon tax hikes will hurt Canadians in the pocketbook \u2013 but then it is meant to. The government has imposed their punitive tax policy, expressly designed to alter Canadians\u2019 behaviour and energy habits. In a Liberal document circulated after the 2019 federal election, Trudeau explained the Liberals\u2019 approach in annually increasing the tax: \u201cThe principle is straightforward: a carbon price establishes how much businesses and households need to pay for their pollution. The higher the price, the greater the incentive to pollute less, conserve energy and invest in low-carbon solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leading Liberals \u2013 the likes of Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland, Catherine McKenna \u2013 believe that only by applying increased financial pain, with the steady increase of the carbon tax, will their emission goals of 2030 and 2050 be met. Except, even with the burden of the scheduled tax hikes, a government report concludes that tripling the carbon taxes in the next six years is not sufficient to force a change in energy use behaviour.<\/p>\n

The Parliamentary Budget Office provided a 2021 analysis that found the government\u2019s \u201cnet zero\u201d targets can only realistically be reached by raising the carbon tax five times greater than it is currently scheduled through 2030. At this level of taxation, Canadians would be paying approximately $160 of additional carbon taxes every time they filled up their vehicle.<\/p>\n

The suggestion that carbon taxes are not high enough has prompted Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault to suggest their scheduled hikes must be further hiked \u2013 but any talk of inflating the tax has been silenced within Liberal circles, likely not to be heard again until after the election.<\/p>\n

The Liberals contend their carbon pricing system is the lynchpin mechanism within the government\u2019s climate plan to ensure the country meets its net-zero targets. Yet this rationale has been discredited. In the fall the government-appointed Environment and Sustainable Development Commissioner Jerry DeMarco released a report that concluded the Trudeau climate plan is a failure.<\/p>\n

It is a fact that, since 2015, Canada\u2019s emissions have risen, and the country has the worst performance of any of the G7 nations when it comes to greenhouse gas emissions. According to a recent U.N. Emissions Gap Report, Canada is set to miss its next emissions target in 2030 by 15 per cent.<\/p>\n

DeMarco\u2019s report assesses that the Liberals environmental policies have too many unrealistic assumptions and projections and have no cohesive plan to reach the targets set for 2030 or 2050. He concludes the \u201cpunitive tax approach\u201d has not been effective and it has failed the government\u2019s stated objective, given emissions have risen over the past couple decades.<\/p>\n

Still, the defiant way Trudeau and his ministers lashed out at the Conservatives this week suggests there is no moving the Liberals on providing carbon tax relief to financially stressed Canadians. As this debate in Ottawa unfolds, Canadians must simply brace themselves for more carbon tax increases on April 1.<\/p>\n

As for the government\u2019s intended rebranding exercise for the \u201cvery ugly carbon tax pig,\u201d if that lipstick analogy is wearing thin, perhaps the Liberals will be better advised by an old Scottish proverb: \u201cYou can\u2019t make a silk purse out of a sow\u2019s ear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chris George<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0is an Ottawa-based government affairs advisor and wordsmith, president of\u00a0CG&A COMMUNICATIONS<\/a>. Contact:\u00a0ChrisG.George@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

LINK: https:\/\/niagaraindependent.ca\/liberals-putting-lipstick-on-a-very-ugly-carbon-tax-pig\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Niagara Independent, February 2, 2024 \u2013 The Liberal government is looking to rebrand the carbon tax, wanting to enhance the promotion of their quarterly rebate cheques. They want to re-explain the significance of their \u201ccarbon pricing system\u201d because, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has confessed, the Liberals are losing the communications battle on the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85],"tags":[76],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16001"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16001"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16003,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16001\/revisions\/16003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bygeorgejournal.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}