By Western Standard

March 14, 2022

-Western Standard

 

The Environment department says the country has proven it can collect a carbon tax that “keeps life affordable.”

Blacklock’s Reporter says the federal tax rises again April 1 to the equivalent of 12¢ a litre on gasoline.

“Canada has proven that carbon pricing can be done in a manner that keeps life affordable,” staff wrote in a Nov. 19 briefing note.

“All direct proceeds from the federal system remain in the jurisdiction where they are collected.

“There is a clear cost from a changing climate so it can’t be free to pollute. That’s why the Government of Canada introduced a price on carbon.”

Parliament had capped the tax at 12¢ on a promise it would never increase.

“The price will not go up,” then-Environment Minister Catherine McKenna told reporters in 2019.

“The plan is not to increase the price post-2022. We are doing exactly what we said we’d do.”

But the Liberals on Dec. 11, 2020, announced it would continue raising the cap by increments from $50 to $170 per tonne by 2030. The new higher charge is the equivalent of a total 27¢ more per litre of propane, 34¢ per cubic metre of natural gas, 40¢ more per litre of gasoline, 44¢ for aviation fuel and an extra 47¢ per litre for diesel.

“People need to walk the talk on the fight against climate change and one of the best ways to do that is to actually bring in a price on pollution,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in remarks last November 17.

A minimum global carbon tax “is the next big step,” he said.

“We’re protecting the planet,” said Trudeau. “We have to look at making sure we are all working on the same competitive field.”

Cabinet repeatedly claimed its carbon tax is revenue neutral since tax filers receive rebates called Climate Action Incentive Payments in the four provinces where it is collected by federal order: Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Critics have disputed the claim.

“It is not revenue neutral,” Conservative MP Kelly McCauley (Edmonton West) told the Commons March 4.

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