Ottawa hides its carbon tax math while Saskatchewan crunches the numbers

[Rob_Zepp]

Are Canadians Really Going to Allow This?

 

Found this on World News.   Hard to fathom people in Canada supporting this.   That money could be so much better used for everything from health care to actual environmental programs let alone just allowing people to get along with their lives.   I can see why some have labeled Env Minster with the "Climate" adjective.

 

TRUSTED

6:00 / 09.07.2018NATIONAL POST

Ottawa hides its carbon tax math while Saskatchewan crunches the numbers

By Todd MacKay

If Canada were a classroom, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would be the kid who forgot his carbon tax homework and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe would be the keener working for extra credit.

 

Ottawa is telling every province to impose a carbon tax. If any province fails to follow the edict, the federal government will impose its own tax that will increase incrementally until it hits $50 per tonne of carbon (11 cents per litre on gasoline) by 2022. It doesn’t matter what other environmental policies a province implements — the price at the pump must go up.

Prudently, Saskatchewan asked what impact the tax would have on the province, and the University of Regina recently released the results of a comprehensive analysis. The conclusions are striking: Ottawa’s carbon tax could cost the Saskatchewan economy $1.8 billion per year, according to the research. That knock is equivalent to 2.4 per cent of GDP.

Ottawa’s carbon tax could cost the Saskatchewan economy $1.8 billion per year

Saskatchewan also cited a recent University of Calgary study that puts the carbon tax in more personal terms and estimates it could cost each household about $1,000.

Those are the costs, but what about the benefits of Ottawa’s carbon-tax scheme?

 

Ottawa’s carbon tax would reduce Saskatchewan’s emissions by 1.25 per cent, according to the study. In a global context, that’s not very much. Canada produces 1.6 per cent of global emissions. Saskatchewan is responsible for about a tenth of Canada’s emissions. That means that Ottawa’s carbon tax will reduce Saskatchewan’s share of global emissions from about 0.173 per cent to 0.171 per cent.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, seen on March 9, 2018, is taking the federal government to court in an attempt to block the carbon tax. Michael Bell/CP

Predictably, Premier Moe is unwilling to ask Saskatchewanians to sacrifice thousands of jobs in their economy and thousands of dollars in their family budgets without any realistic prospect of impacting what is a global challenge. In fact, Premier Moe is taking Ottawa to court to block the scheme. The University of Regina’s research will clearly form the cornerstone of Saskatchewan’s arguments in court.

 

But what if Saskatchewan’s numbers are wrong? Maybe a carbon tax won’t deliver a blow to the provincial economy’s fragile recovery. Maybe it will deliver world-changing results. Maybe Ottawa has better numbers.

 

Unfortunately, the proverbial dog ate the prime minister’s homework, or, more literally, the censor’s black marker blotted it out.

Unfortunately, the proverbial dog ate the prime minister’s homework

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation submitted access-to-information requests for federal analysis of a carbon tax’s impact on Saskatchewan. The government heavily redacted virtually every page and completely withheld many pages.

 

It gets worse. The Office of the Information Commissioner took a look at the documents. That prompted the government to raise the veil of secrecy a fraction of an inch. A second set of documents included the word “pricing” in email subject lines (where it had been studiously blacked out in the first edition) and gave a few other glimpses into the government’s inner workings.

 

While Ottawa did its damnedest to paper over any transparency, one fascinating chart squeezed through.

When fully implememented, the federal carbon tax would cost 11 cents per litre of gas. Graham Hughes/CP

The provinces all charge fuel taxes to fund roadwork and general government spending. By federal logic, a fuel tax of any kind should work as a carbon tax, with a higher tax having a greater impact. The fugitive chart shows Manitoba’s effective carbon tax is currently $59.80 per tonne on gasoline, while it’s $70.50 per tonne in Newfoundland and Labrador. This would be critically important information if Ottawa has pinpointed the price necessary to reduce emissions. But the current price matters not and Ottawa’s demand remains uniform for all provinces: the price must rise.

 

Canadians deserve to know the numbers behind a carbon tax. They deserve to know whether it will help the environment. And they deserve to know how much a carbon tax will cost. Saskatchewan has turned in its homework and Ottawa needs to do the same.

[chon derry]

I hope he pi$$'s off JT , WITH THIS , but yet it was alright for him to be telling JT to with hold infrastructure money to bc regarding KM. 

[PhillipBlunt]

Meet the new boss

Same as the old boss.

[JM_]

great, one guys unsubstantiated opinion piece. Its sad what passes for news now. 

[Warhippy]

And?

 

Personally I am not going to sit here and pretend the carbon recapture idiots have better arithmetic abilities than the feds.  They're all idiots.

 

But

 

I am going to sit here and state flat out that continuing to play divisive politics in the face of obvious crap hitting the climate fan is essentially going to kill off my kids or grandkids and that is not something I will allow.

 

if Canada only accounts for 1.6% of the global issue than ifs bring it down to 1% and be a leader about it and stop fn whining.

 

I don't want to hear about numbers anymore because one side is claiming the other is out to lunch while the truth is they are bloody identical and have lied about the same things.

 

Shut up.  Get to work.  Fix the issues.

[Hobble]

It annoys me when people argue, "well province/country A only produces % of gas emission in Canada/world, so blah blah blah". That attitude is why things are moving slower than needed around the world. Stop pointing fingers and help out. If your economy is heavily dependent on carbon, then you need to adapt.

[hlinkas wrister]

I'm all for Canada being a leader in energy conservation but where is all this money going? Where is the evidence that this tax (or that ridiculous cap and trade bs) actually lowers carbon emitting? The only thing I see happening is provincial governments already planning on putting the excess money into general revenues when they start collecting $50 per ton in 5 years. These same criminals will use the revenue to finance rebates or reductions in corporate taxes- in essence just pulling more money out of the average Canadian's pocket and giving it straight to big corporations in order to stimulate economies and meanwhile emissions will keep rising. 

[Vinny in Vancouver]

3 hours ago, Jimmy McGill said:

great, one guys unsubstantiated opinion piece. Its sad what passes for news now. 

It would be nice if you can contribute more to the discussion than just name calling as that does nothing to convince anybody. Which parts of the article are you complaining about? Are you going to go after the researches done by the universities? What's your stance and why do you support it? In the interest of full disclosure, I'm definitely in support of drastically cutting down our collective carbon footprint as quickly as possible even at the cost of economic loss for myself (and the rest of the world if need be), and I've been trying to be true to that in my own personal choices.

[coolboarder]

All for the reason to vote out Libs and vote for any party that would allow for province to decide for themselves, not the federal.  

[Tortorella's Rant]

Because it's a scam..

 

Shocker. 

[Rob_Zepp]

4 hours ago, Jimmy McGill said:

great, one guys unsubstantiated opinion piece. Its sad what passes for news now. 

University of Regina is an opinion piece?  Is that what people in Canada think now?   Jimmy - there is a lot more to this than opinion and the redaction speaks volumes.   You know full well Canada's contribution is statistically insignificant.    This is simply political pandering at its worst and it doesn't impact those with deep pockets whatsover so is one of the more punitive politic agendas in current memory.    

[Rob_Zepp]

3 hours ago, Warhippy said:

And?

 

Personally I am not going to sit here and pretend the carbon recapture idiots have better arithmetic abilities than the feds.  They're all idiots.

 

But

 

I am going to sit here and state flat out that continuing to play divisive politics in the face of obvious crap hitting the climate fan is essentially going to kill off my kids or grandkids and that is not something I will allow.

 

if Canada only accounts for 1.6% of the global issue than ifs bring it down to 1% and be a leader about it and stop fn whining.

 

I don't want to hear about numbers anymore because one side is claiming the other is out to lunch while the truth is they are bloody identical and have lied about the same things.

 

Shut up.  Get to work.  Fix the issues.

If you want to fix the issues, then build some pipelines and stop unethical/politically motivated oil.   Start funding cleaner fuel options as fossil fuel based engines can be less harmful to enviro than any other alternative if the reduction in emissions from 1970 to 2010 trend sustained to 2050.    That would be how to address this - not be playing politics which, agreed, are very divisive.   

[Duds]

“Open and transparent government”

[JM_]

1 hour ago, vinny_in_vancouver said:

It would be nice if you can contribute more to the discussion than just name calling as that does nothing to convince anybody. Which parts of the article are you complaining about? Are you going to go after the researches done by the universities? What's your stance and why do you support it? In the interest of full disclosure, I'm definitely in support of drastically cutting down our collective carbon footprint as quickly as possible even at the cost of economic loss for myself (and the rest of the world if need be), and I've been trying to be true to that in my own personal choices.

what are you talking about, what name calling? its a pure opinion piece. The piece annoyed me because it was very biased and linked to no factual information. 

[Ryan Strome]

34 minutes ago, Duds said:

“Open and transparent government”

Lmao this has never existed in Canada. You know in Canada we vote for least ridiculous party but the one that wins is usually still ridiculous.

 

Anyone with a brain cell or two knows a carbon tax is a complete scam it is nothing more than a money grab. 

 

If you want a carbon tax then build high speed rail that connects all cities and towns in Canada otherwise gtfo with a carbon tax.

 

Saskatchewan will most likely win this court battle and I would love to watch JT attempt to implement a carbon tax on Ontario which has said they won't allow it. No way JT takes on Ontario in an election year.

 

JTs carbon tax scheme will rightfully blow up in his face and thats a good thing.

[Ryan Strome]

3 minutes ago, Jimmy McGill said:

what are you talking about, what name calling? its a pure opinion piece. The piece annoyed me because it was very biased and linked to no factual information. 

Did you even read it Jimmy?

 

 

[JM_]

52 minutes ago, Rob_Zepp said:

University of Regina is an opinion piece?  Is that what people in Canada think now?   Jimmy - there is a lot more to this than opinion and the redaction speaks volumes.   You know full well Canada's contribution is statistically insignificant.    This is simply political pandering at its worst and it doesn't impact those with deep pockets whatsover so is one of the more punitive politic agendas in current memory.    

yes because its under the National Post opinion section. 

 

That is a cop out imo Rob. Our footprint belongs to us. We own what we do.  If you can provide me with a moral or humanistic argument why Canadian citizens deserve to contribute more per person I'd love to hear it. 

 

Now on the concept of whether or not another tax is the way to curb emissions thats another discussion, but we do need to curb them. I don't see anything coming out of Sask that is doing anything else, just cost statements and resistance to anything Liberal. I'm from there originally and my parents still live there so I do know something about the place. 

[JM_]

1 minute ago, Ryan Strome said:

Did you even read it Jimmy?

 

 

yes. It really seems to have got under some people's skin that I pointed out the fact that its an opinion piece. 

[Ryan Strome]

13 minutes ago, Jimmy McGill said:

yes. It really seems to have got under some people's skin that I pointed out the fact that its an opinion piece. 

It didn't get under my skin. The government withholding pages and having some pages redacted is not new news to me I heard this a while back. However, that shady move by the government did get under my skin.

[Violator]

22 minutes ago, Jimmy McGill said:

yes. It really seems to have got under some people's skin that I pointed out the fact that its an opinion piece. 

Still from the canadian taxpayers federation.They generally have legitamate complaints that this is just another tax grab with no actual benefit