I agree with Pierre Poilievre: The next election should be about the carbon tax.
Sure, and the carbon tax is widely recognized as the best and least expensive method of driving behavioral change and ghg emission reductions. It also has a progressive feature of being refunded back largely to the bottom 90% of households.
I’ve heard Pierre’s argument on this and let me just say “nuh uh, hair man bad” is not convincing me.
I think the carbon tax opposition is mostly a communication problem, because as you said most people actually receive money from this. It’s just sad to think it might disapperar after the next elections, because i feel like it is the one policy we have that actually works.
Fighting misinformation will be the greatest hurdle of any positive cause this century
Hell, I support the carbon tax, but I couldn’t tell you how much I’ve paid, how much I’ve received (well okay, I could look that up), or what the overall environmental impact has been.
Well there are a couple of issues at play for the average voter.
For a lot of people, the hit at purchase is problematic. You pay the tax on a limited income when you buy fuel to heat your home or drive your vehicle. You don’t get that back right away so you have to account for that increase in cost.
You may say well go buy an energy efficient heater - that’s well and good for someone already in the market to replace one, but not everyone is going out to replace their home heating system.
The same comment applies for someone who drives to work - you may say that well they should drive less or take public transit. More and more employers have been mandating a return to in person attendance at the office. So remote work is becoming even more of a privilege. Public transit across this country is a joke and not a viable option if you don’t live in the downtown core of a major city.
The carbon tax is great in theory but terrible in practice because we don’t have the infrastructure or systems in place for a real alternative.
What you’re describing is the tax working as intended. Discouraging the behavior and then making people whole, with several valid and viable paths to come out on top economically.
The federal government has made gigantic investments to help average people transition since they won a majority mandate on carbon pricing 8 years ago. Free geat pumps for low income households, low interest green improvement loans for everyone else, BEV rebates nation wide, transit investments, ladder tax, implementation. Meanwhile, the average person ignored the programs and bought themselves larger and more expensive vehicles.
We had 8 years to get ready for this.
A not so minor correction. The heat pumps are not free. The maximum payout is $5000. That has to cover the equipment, installation by a certified professional, and any necessary electrical upgrades. A ballpark estimate for my place comes in at over $6000. If I hold the total cost to $5k, the system will not be fit for purpose under the requirements of the program, making me ineligible for anything.
In addition, your dwelling must be eligible. That sounds easy until you realize that mobile homes must have the axles removed. Hitches, too, but axle removal is the big one. For me, that’s another couple of grand to remove skirting, shift blocking, pull the axles out, and replace skirting.
The fact that those axles are useless because of other modifications and additions doesn’t change the official designation as a mobile home. I suppose it might be possible to appeal that designation, but I’m not sure that would be less expensive.
For the heat pumps to be truly free, they’d have to nearly double the current subsidy and allow for non-electrical expenses like axle removal.
In another world, maybe we would have had a conservative party that proposed a Cap-and-Trade as an alternative to a Carbon Tax, rather than just sticking their heads in the (oil) sands. But that’s not the world we live in.
What you’re touching on is a fundamental problem with any attempts to solve carbon emissions by “market forces”, ie carbon tax or cap & trade. Those with the easiest access to capital are able to adjust their situation, such as shelling out for a BEV or heat pump. Those without can’t and need to keep their old 2002 Toyota Corolla or oil furnace until they can save up enough to replace it, which is hard because their old stuff just got more expensive to run.
At best, carbon taxes or cap & trade is only half the solution. For the heat pump thing, I’d like to see a “rent-to-own” sort of scheme. If you can install a heat pump in my home today, and save me 10% on my heating bill, great! Meanwhile, the installer “owns” the heat pump, and the difference in the discounted they offer and the actual cost of power is their take. After some time, they sign over the heat pump, and I get an even cheaper rate without the middleman. Great in theory, but I don’t trust “the market” to come up with something like this without specific legislation to support it.
But to OP’s point, I have zero trust in PP to actually meaningfully improve anything. I’m pretty sure his entire platform boils down to “it’s not perfect, so scrap everything and we’ll commission another study to find the perfect solution”. Meanwhile, do nothing.
Your “installer financed” system is sort of like what is available from some solar panel installers. I don’t know if it’s just a plain lease or rent to own, though.
What you’ve described in your comment might be labelled as inconvenient or financially costlier. “Terrible” though? The wildfires this summer were terrible. The future of this planet may be terrible
I never said “terrible” so thanks for putting words in my mouth.
Climate change is terrible, yes. So let’s go after the biggest polluters. Build public transit infrastructure. Let’s force companies to make an active change: make work from home permanent thing for workers.
Going after regular people while capitalism continues to burn the planet is stupid.
Edit: apparently people live in la-la land.
I agree with all the points you just made.
This is the part of your comment I was citing:
The carbon tax is great in theory but terrible in practice
It’s terrible in practice because it does nothing to curb the behaviour beyond punishing regular people for just being a part of the system.
If I am forced to go to work and no alternative exists (i.e. viable public transit), I’m being punished at the pump.
I agree in the sense that I hope the country can affirm support for it and much more wrt climate action. We’ve got a few months distance so it’s out of people’s short term memory but a lot of Canada burned down this year. Fully half my summer was blanketed in wildfire smoke. Turning an entire season (the best season) from great to awful is a loss of living standard that’s hard to reckon with. We need to make this a central issue.
This. I dont understand how so many people can be against the carbon tax WHILE EVERYTHING IS FUC**** BURNING.
I agree completely, and that’s why I won’t vote for the CPC. Who the fuck thinks it’s a good idea to keep fucking the environment while Vancouver is turning into SoCal.
The election should be about the future. The carbon tax is part of it. But so is all the shit PP would do if he was in charge
Not just the things he says they would do, but the things his base and MPs say they want. Rolling back progress on any number of previously ‘settled’ social and human rights files, the realignment of benefits towards the top 10%. I mean, just look at how provinces with conservative leaders act, how are trans kids doing in Sask? How about that green belt and Healthcare money in Ontario? What , did we think the Campaign life coalition just folded up one day and isn’t, as we speak, electing CPC candidates in targeted ridings?
Yea, no thank you.
For provincial Conservative leaders: don’t forget what they’re doing in NB in attacking unions and collective bargaining agreements
Yea, the list could be a mile long but I hate to feel like I’m gish galloping.
I agree as well but likely not for the same reasons as Squinty McProudboy.
The carbon tax is a Conservative policy. Trudeau didn’t invent it like the NEP his father created and just acted on it.
If the price of polluting our environment doesn’t change your habits, then what will?
Drive less, transit more. My commute to work is nearly double when taking public transit but I still do it. Instead of flying to a warm island in the Canadian winter, I stay local.
Often I hear people bitch about inflation and not the carbon tax but that’s not our PM’s fault, despite Bitcoin Millhouse’s assurances.
Instead of saying, “everything is broken” like a petulant child, work with the government and find solutions that work for everyone. I have zero doubt that if the CPC really cared about Canadians, the current carbon tax rollout would have been 100x better but they don’t. It’s a game to them because they’re all rich and no tax increase or policy change could really harm them.
That said, I hope the Liberals and NDP continue to work together to help Canadians with the national dental plan which would NOT have happened under ANY CPC government, regardless of which soulless goon they can prop up.
The problem is that “drive less transit more” is only an option if you live where transit is viable. If they were simultaneously investing money (or even reinvesting the carbon tax into) into subsidies for transit systems, cycling improvements, walkable cities, and the like so that these alternatives are accessible to everyone then there would be at least a carrot to go along with that stick. But there’s virtually no amount of tax that will ever make trading a 30 minute car ride for 2 hours on and off with multiple transfers with the bus a reasonable alternative. And there’s no way to get more people into buses or trains that are crammed full to the point of skipping stops even if you could somehow convince people to make that trade.
Viability is subjective. You can take public transit but you chose not to because of the extra time it takes, not because it’s not possible.
Driving less doesn’t mean not driving at all. If you have to drive some portion and transit the rest, that’s still less driving.
If you chose to live far from work, then you’ve placed yourself in a difficult position so don’t expect the city to conjure up a bus route just for you. Living closer to work or working closer to home are options but you’d likely find a reason to not do either.
At what point would the city add more buses? Before you decide to take more transit? That’s nonsensical. Demand comes first, not supply.
I think the carbon tax is an important part of our climate strategy, but we shouldn’t let it dominate the election like PP wants it to. Keep the focus on how the parties would actually run the government, because so far the cons can’t seem to come up with an answer for that.
Axe the rebate
- PP
What a spoiled little moron you are.
