Wildfires in Canada and unseasonably high temperatures in Europe are being blamed on climate change, escalating the perceived urgency to “do something” about carbon emissions. In Canada, it seems no volume of emissions is too small to worry about. B.C. taxpayers
will soon be paying some $28 million to connect cruise ships docking in Victoria to electric shore power so diesel generators can be shut down. This must set a world record in terms of the cost per unit of avoided emissions.
We’re also on track to establish a coast-to-coast cost record on emissions reductions through ever-rising carbon taxes on motor fuel plus deliberate debilitation of the oil and gas industry — though it contributes the largest share of both GDP and export revenue of any industry.
Motorists in B.C., Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec are already paying average federal and provincial gasoline taxes of 15.4 cents/litre, plus carbon taxes of 14 cents for a total of 29.4 cents/litre. The federal carbon tax is scheduled to increase to 37 cents/litre by 2030, taking average gasoline taxes to 52.4 cents/litre.
But that’s not all. On Canada Day the feds also imposed their “clean fuel standard,” a scheme requiring providers of motor fuels to progressively reduce “carbon intensity.” Environment and Climate Change Canada says this will raise gasoline costs another 17 cents/litre.
Adding these together means motorists in provinces making up 80 per cent of Canada’s population will be paying average motor fuel taxes of 69.4 cents/litre by 2030. In the U.S. by contrast,
total federal and state gasoline taxes average just 11.7 cents per litre — with absolutely no sign of increasing.
Ottawa is fighting a war on carbon emissions on the backs of those who can least afford it
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The Parliamentary Budget Officer
has concluded these rising motor fuel taxes are “broadly regressive,” meaning the economic impact will fall disproportionately on lower-income people already struggling to pay the rising cost of groceries and other necessities. And the cost of all those necessities will be driven even higher by carbon taxes levied on the fuels used to produce and deliver them.
How ironic that a self-described “progressive” Liberal government kept in power by the deeply socialist NDP — both supposedly dedicated to protecting the poor — is fighting a war on carbon emissions on the backs of those who can least afford it.
Speaking of people who can least afford carbon taxes,
a just-published study entitled “How will Atlantic Canada fare under the carbon tax?” found that the two most populous Maritime provinces will be the hardest hit. Nova Scotia’s reliance on power generated from high-taxed coal will see its power production costs rising an estimated 109 per cent, while those in New Brunswick will climb 42 per cent.
Good times. The rest at the above link.
(Calculations using data from the Government of Canada’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions website show that, if all our gasoline and diesel-powered cars and trucks were taken off the road for one year, the total emissions avoided would offset China’s emissions for just 58 hours)