Since the Liberals had the poor judgement to give a "break" to home heating oil users in Atlantic Canada, there has been a growing backlash against their signature climate change initiative. Without this ill-considered "carve-out", it would probably not have occurred to most people that avoiding a price on carbon was even an option. It was probably the worst single decision the Liberals have made in the whole eight years of their administration.
Now, however, a recent poll shows that 42% want the carbon "tax" to be scrapped completely, and a further 17% want at least a temporary cut. Only 15% believe that the tax should continue as scheduled with further rate increases each year. (The whole point of putting a price on carbon is to make carbon-intensive activities increasingly undesirable and difficult. Because, you know, the planet is burning and all that.)
Predictably, the Conservatives have made hay from this chink of sunshine. Disingenuous populists like Pierre Poilievre and Danielle Smith have jumped on this opportunity to beat the Liberals, and "Axe the tax!" (could they not do better than that?) has become a rallying cry for the right wing once again. Because, well, taxes are bad, aren't they?
Well, no, taxes are not, in and of themselves, bad. They are a way of raising money to provide other government services for people that need them. But, more to the point the "carbon tax" is not really a tax at all. It is a revenue-neutral device, and all the money collected is refunded to taxpayers. In fact, an estimated 80% of taxpayers - including most lower- and middle-income Canadians - are better off as a result of the carbon tax, as they receive more back in the form of a Climate Action Incentive Payment than they pay out as a result of the increasing carbon tax. Only a small minority of (wealthier) Canadians are actually out of pocket, due to their particularly carbon-intensive lifestyle. Don't just take the government's word for that, though: a 2021 university study confirms it, as does a 2022 Parliamentary Budget Office report.
The Liberals, though, have done a terrible job of explaining this to the Canadian public, and nearly 40% of Canadians seem to have no idea that they have been receiving these rebates. (It doesn't help that banks have been slow to transparently label the direct deposits in people's bank accounts, which might make it clearer what the deposits are for.) Even since the Conservatives' iniquitous "Axe the Tax" campaign started, the Liberals still don't seem to have gone out their way to explain it, or to explain why the Conservatives are lying to us about it (one has to assume that Conservative politicians actually DO understand it).
But, anyway, the Conservatives say, the carbon tax is adding to our inflationary woes, isn't it? Well, kind of. Tiff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, estimates that the effect of the carbon tax on the recent increase in inflation is about ... 0.15%. So, inflationary pressure is just another Conservative red herring. And even that small element is not inflation that leaves us worse off (in the majority of cases, at any rate), because we get it back in the form of a rebate.
I know that. Maybe you know that. But most people apparently don't. Why don't they? Because the Liberals are inept. And the Conservatives will be running a whole election campaign on the basis of that government ineptitude and willful public ignorance. And they are clearly willing to lie and mislead in the process.
Incidentally, I have tried to find a good explanation of why Poilievre and his followers object so strenuously to the carbon tax, but I have failed to do so. (Plenty of articles about why Conservatives should be in favour of it, but nothing substantive to the contrary.)
No comments:
Post a Comment