Federal Carbon Tax ruled to be constitutional

pgs

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 29, 2008
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My question was weather he ruling that the federal tax is constitutional meant that the provincial taxes were also constitutional.

Not sure where the misunderstanding might be.
Not at all you simply changed the goal posts ,like always when stymied.
 

Hoid

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 15, 2017
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change what goal posts?

All I have ever said is "does this mean that the provincial taxes are also constitutional?"

You have obviously read "changed the goal posts" somewhere and have taken it to heart.
 

petros

The Central Scrutinizer
Nov 21, 2008
108,915
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Or BC. Or Ontario or Quebec.
BC has had one since 08 and BC has the best economy in Canada

If 6 cents lowers emissions, the $1.70L must have a massive impact on BC emissions.

It'll stick out like a sore thumb in the daily air quality stats.

Now is your chance to prove once and for all that high fuel costs reduce emissions.

Show me the money!
 
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pgs

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 29, 2008
26,543
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B.C.
If 6 cents lowers emissions, the $1.70L must have a massive impact on BC emissions.

It'll stick out like a sore thumb in the daily air quality stats.

Now is your chance to prove once and for all that high fuel costs reduce emissions.

Show me the money!
He can’t, and rush hour in the lower mainland is just as busy as last month .
 

Hoid

Hall of Fame Member
Oct 15, 2017
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Gas and oil are priced via speculation.

That is why they are no longer a reliable energy source.
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
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He's alluding to the fact that many in the lower BC Mainland are driving into the USA (Washington State) to purchase their Gasoline or Diesel at a lower tax rate, and while they're there they might as well do their grocery shopping and so on and so forth...as the Fuel Tax situation in the Lower mainland is about $0.60/litre CAD (=$2.27CAD/US Gallon = $1.68USD/US Gallon). If Canadian Fuel is priced 'out of reach' in that microcosm of Canada then they purchase in WA. It lowers how much fuel (& thus many other things) are purchased in BC ("Look at how Green they are!") and business is booming in upper Washington State. Saving the planet one tax at a time. Try to find a parking stall in Bellingham as a local in the ocean of BC license plates on a weekend.

So, how long has BC had a Carbon Tax? About a decade ago? Check the dates on some of the below links:

http://navabrahe.com/index.php/2015/08/17/hands-off-the-milk-and-gas-a-trip-to-costco/
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/christopher-sands/border-shopping-canada_b_1785107.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/got-milk-canadian-shoppers-get-it-at-us-costco-2012-08-16
http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bellingham-costco-complaining-about-canadians
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/facebook-page-calls-for-american-only-hours-at-u-s-costco-1.1165291
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/point-roberts-washington-a-little-slice-of-the-u-s-only-accessible-through-canada

 

pgs

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 29, 2008
26,543
6,923
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B.C.
He's alluding to the fact that many in the lower BC Mainland are driving into the USA (Washington State) to purchase their Gasoline or Diesel at a lower tax rate, and while they're there they might as well do their grocery shopping and so on and so forth...as the Fuel Tax situation in the Lower mainland is about $0.60/litre CAD (=$2.27CAD/US Gallon = $1.68USD/US Gallon). If Canadian Fuel is priced 'out of reach' in that microcosm of Canada then they purchase in WA. It lowers how much fuel (& thus many other things) are purchased in BC ("Look at how Green they are!") and business is booming in upper Washington State. Saving the planet one tax at a time. Try to find a parking stall in Bellingham as a local in the ocean of BC license plates on a weekend.

So, how long has BC had a Carbon Tax? About a decade ago? Check the dates on some of the below links:

http://navabrahe.com/index.php/2015/08/17/hands-off-the-milk-and-gas-a-trip-to-costco/
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/christopher-sands/border-shopping-canada_b_1785107.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/got-milk-canadian-shoppers-get-it-at-us-costco-2012-08-16
http://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bellingham-costco-complaining-about-canadians
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/facebook-page-calls-for-american-only-hours-at-u-s-costco-1.1165291
http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/point-roberts-washington-a-little-slice-of-the-u-s-only-accessible-through-canada

Thank you . To much work for me to prove a fact of life in my area .
 

pgs

Hall of Fame Member
Nov 29, 2008
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I'm on the outside look'n in but I get it. I just about shit yesterday when I filled up my girlfriends truck (before the long weekend) at $1.26/L here in Regina.
Yes last week at the Alberta border it was 1.28 almost had a movement in my pants .
 

Ron in Regina

"Voice of the West" Party
Apr 9, 2008
22,847
7,791
113
Regina, Saskatchewan
If 6 cents lowers emissions, the $1.70L must have a massive impact on BC emissions.

It'll stick out like a sore thumb in the daily air quality stats.

Now is your chance to prove once and for all that high fuel costs reduce emissions.

Show me the money!
From Peter Shawn Taylor for the National Post:

According to 11 out of every 10 economists, the best way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions is to implement a carbon tax. Or, if you happen to be a Liberal prime minister or MP: “putting a price on pollution.”

As has been repeatedly drilled into Canadians over the past several years, carbon taxes are supposed to be the most efficient, least costly and entirely revenue-neutral solution to fighting climate change. We know this because Ottawa tells us so. As does the self-appointed Ecofiscal Commission. And an apparently endless series of experts, self-appointed and otherwise. Got that? Carbon taxes are the best of all possible options.

The public face of Ottawa’s carbon-pricing plan recently imposed on New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan (and perhaps Alberta in short order) has two parts. First is a tax on hydrocarbon fuels and energy used by consumers and small-and-medium sized businesses — with Ottawa promising most families getting back more than they paid in “climate action dividends.” Then there’s a separate scheme for big business, which had the foresight (and lobbying muscle) to arrange for itself a deal that sees up to 90 per cent of its costs returned via rebates and subsidies.

Setting aside the question of whether it’s fair that small-and-medium sized business owners alone get stuck with the bill for carbon taxation, this policy is supposed to replace a whole host of inefficient and costly regulations.

“Regulations are more expensive than carbon pricing,” the Ecofiscal Commission reminds us in a recent release touting the benefits of taxing carbon. Earlier this year, 27 Nobel Prize-winning economists made the same argument in support of a similar U.S. carbon tax proposal. “A sufficiently robust and gradually rising carbon tax will replace the need for various carbon regulations that are less efficient,” the economic experts advised.
So then why are Canadians getting carbon taxes plus all other tax, subsidy and regulatory options? Isn’t that the worst of all possible worlds?
Carbon taxes are thus an economic ideal that is supposed to avoid the need for inefficient and costly government regulations.

Funny thing, though. Alongside its new carbon taxes, Ottawa is also unleashing a host of new carbon-fighting regulations, covering such things as methane, coal and all other fossil fuels as well as costly energy efficiency programs and even buying CO2 emission offsets — so called “hot air” — from other countries. But the most significant of these is the federal government’s upcoming Clean Fuel Standard. It’s a minefield of hidden costs, new regulatory burdens, inter-government duplication and bureaucratic uncertainty.

Under the proposed Clean Fuel Standard, all firms that produce or import liquid, gaseous or solid fuel in Canada will have to reduce the carbon intensity of their product by 11 per cent come 2030: either by blending in lower carbon alternatives (such as ethanol into gasoline), changing their processes or switching to renewable energy. They can also buy credits from other firms to cover their obligations. This can be expensive. While Ottawa’s direct carbon tax is set to rise to $50 per tonne by 2022, the future cost of a Clean Fuel Standard credit is estimated at between $150/tonne and $180/tonne.

This means the government’s added cost on a litre of fuel will keep going up for all Canadians. A report by Navius Research pegs the ultimate impact of the Clean Fuel Standard on gas prices at about 5¢ per litre, or slightly more than Ottawa’s carbon tax just added at the pump. Diesel will rise by 7.5¢/L. Natural gas is also rising. But Canadian families will not get a “climate action incentive” to compensate them for these hidden increases. In a further blow to transparency, electric vehicle manufacturers will be allowed to generate credits to sell to needy fuel producers — a secret gift to make up for the potential disappearance of electric car subsidies due to their political unpopularity.

These changing fuel rules will inevitably push up demand for ethanol and other biofuels, with all the unintended consequences this entails in terms of land use and food costs. However, these potentially damaging upstream land-use effects will be ignored under the Clean Fuel Standards.

Most worrisome of all is that this regulatory monstrosity will be stacked on top of all existing rules. The federal Renewable Fuels Regulation, for example, currently mandates all gasoline sold in Canada must contain five per cent renewable content by volume. However, the Clean Fuel Standard regulates on the basis of carbon intensity, rather than volume. So, Ottawa will have overlapping regulations doing different things at the same time. Plus, B.C. already operates its own clean fuel standard, but it’s unclear how this will interact with the federal system — although Ottawa has said it will not accept credits generated from provincial programs.

Having sold carbon taxes to Canadians on the basis that they’re better than all the alternatives, the federal Liberals are now giving us all the horrible alternatives as well. We’re getting carbon taxes plus new regulations plus old regulations plus the unintended consequences of how all this will interact. And that’s neither efficient, transparent nor ideal. But it will make energy in Canada hopelessly expensive.
 

Mowich

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Dec 25, 2005
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'Completely inconsistent': Carbon taxes applied unequally between provinces, new report says

OTTAWA — Carbon taxes have been applied unequally in different provinces, a new report from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is pointing out, with some Canadians paying as little as half a cent more per litre of gas than they were before carbon pricing came into effect.

The federal carbon tax, which was rolled out in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick on April 1, has added about 4.4 cents to the price of a litre of gasoline. The tax was applied to those four provinces because they refused to develop their own carbon prices, and is supposed to increase to 11 cents per litre by 2022.

But in other provinces whose carbon pricing plans have the federal government’s approval, the actual increase in gas prices is substantially smaller than that. Both Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island have offset their carbon taxes by cutting existing provincial gas taxes, such that Newfoundlanders are now paying just 0.42 cents more per litre than they were before the carbon tax was levied, and Islanders are paying just one cent more. P.E.I. also plans to increase its carbon tax by just one cent per litre in 2020 — less than the federal backstop, which is expected to increase by 2.2 cents per litre next year — and it’s not clear whether it will continue to increase past 2020.

Meanwhile, Nova Scotia’s cap-and-trade system has residents there paying less than one additional cent per litre, according to the report. In contrast, Quebec’s cap-and-trade system costs nearly five cents per litre.

“(Ottawa) seemed to be applying the standard for which the federal backstop kicks in differently depending on the province,” said Aaron Wudrick, federal director of the taxpayers federation, which opposes the carbon tax. He said if other provinces had proposed similar tactics, like cutting provincial gas taxes to offset the carbon tax, “I’m not sure that Ottawa would have been so accommodating with it.”

Under the federal plan, provinces have the right to develop their own carbon prices, but every province must have a carbon tax of at least $20 per tonne of greenhouse-gas emissions in 2019, rising to $50 per tonne in 2022, or a cap-and-trade system that will achieve equivalent emissions reductions. A spokesperson for Environment Minister Catherine McKenna told the Post by email that the federal backstop was only imposed on those provinces that “did not step up.”

“Provinces had the flexibility to design a system that works for them, provided it meets the federal standard,” Sabrina Kim said.

The four provinces where the federal tax has been imposed have fought hard against carbon pricing. In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford repealed the former Liberal government’s cap-and-trade system, and both Ontario and Saskatchewan have launched legal challenges of the federal plan. Earlier this month, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal ruled in a split decision that the federal carbon tax is constitutional.

By comparison, governments of the Atlantic provinces, with the exception of New Brunswick, have raised concerns about the financial impact of carbon pricing but have not waged war with Ottawa. “Presumably there’s a great deal of politics involved,” said Larry Hughes, a professor at the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance at Dalhousie University in Halifax. Consequently, he said, the application of carbon pricing across the country is “completely inconsistent” and unfair.

Wudrick suggested Ottawa may have felt inclined to approve carbon pricing plans coming from friendlier governments than those in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, regardless of inconsistencies. “Are they looking the other way a little bit?” he said. “I think there’s a strong incentive to.”

The federal government is rebating most of the money collected through the backstop carbon tax to residents in the four provinces where it applies, and says most residents will get back more than they spend. This isn’t the case in the other Atlantic provinces, meaning it’s not necessarily true that New Brunswickers are now worse off than their neighbours.

However, the federal government argues the incentive to cut emissions will remain as the carbon tax increases, even with the rebate.

Presumably that incentive is lower in provinces that have seen almost no change in their gas prices. Under Nova Scotia’s cap-and-trade system, Hughes said, “the prices are so low that it’s hardly going to make an impact on anyone driving here.”

People in Alberta and British Columbia are paying the highest carbon taxes in the country, with British Columbians paying close to nine cents per litre and Albertans paying 6.7 cents per litre under their provincial plans, the report says. However, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has announced he will repeal that province’s carbon tax by the end of the month, and Ottawa then plans to impose the federal backstop.

Hughes said the principle of carbon pricing — increasing the price of gas to get people to use less of it — makes sense, but the inconsistencies across provinces are a problem. “In many respects I have no problem with the carbon tax,” he said. “I have great problems with the way it’s been implemented.”

The study from the taxpayers federation found that taxes, including sales taxes, excise taxes and the carbon tax, now account for 34 per cent of the pump price of gasoline on average. Those taxes range from about 34 cents per litre in Manitoba to nearly 55 cents per litre in Montreal. The organization is also criticizing the fact that Canadians pay sales tax on the excise and carbon taxes on gasoline. It claims this “tax on tax” costs an extra 3.4 cents per litre on average.

Wudrick also said gas taxes in U.S. border states are now significantly lower than those in Canada, and Canadians who can cross the border to get gas could save thousands of dollars a year.

nationalpost.com/news/politics/completely-inconsistent-carbon-taxes-applied-unequally-between-provinces-new-report-says
 

MHz

Time Out
Mar 16, 2007
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Why are the Courts and the Lawyers the only 'winners', . . . once again?? How about a birdhouse on every fence-post in the Prairies??
 

MHz

Time Out
Mar 16, 2007
41,030
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Red Deer AB
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spilledthebeer

Executive Branch Member
Jan 26, 2017
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So. . . supply and demand economics is wrong?




IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


If you put the price of water UP to insane heights..........................................


people will still keep drinking it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Because they MUST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Putting the price of gas UP to insane heights..........................................................


simply gets people PISSED at the idiot govt that is deliberately driving UP the insane prices!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


And the public SEES CLEARLY that the concept of supply and demand.............................................


DOES NOT WORK IN A MONOPOLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


If the ONLY WAY to get to work is to drive....................................


then YOU WILL DRIVE.....................................................


while LIE-berals make grand plans to build pubic transit.......................................


that will NEVER BE BUILT..........................................


because LIE-berals REFUSE to spend THEIR GRAVY.............................................


ON OUR NEEDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



LIE-berals ARE THE BIGGEST THREAT to the environment that our world faces!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


LIE-beral policy is SO GROSSLY SELF SERVING that constitutes a MAJOR OBSTACLE to logical climate solutions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!