GOLDSTEIN: Prime Minister’s carbon taxes disconnected from reality

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s second carbon tax – known as the Clean Fuel Standard – is the latest example of how his energy policies are moving further away from reality, while financially punishing Canadians.

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Starting next year, Trudeau’s Clean Fuel Standard alone, according to an impact analysis conducted by the federal government itself, will increase the price of gasoline by 6 to 13 cents per litre. and the price of diesel fuel from 7 to 16 cents per liter by 2030. .

Factoring in direct and indirect costs — because the rising cost of gasoline and diesel fuel drives up the price of almost everything — the government estimates it will cost the average Canadian household between $132 and $301 per year by 2030, with an average of $220.

This will increase energy poverty in Canada, according to the impact analysis, and will be disproportionately felt by low- and middle-income Canadians, seniors on fixed incomes, single mothers, rural Canadians, Canadians working in the oil and gas sector and Canadians living in the Atlantic. Canada, which spend a higher proportion of their income on transportation compared to other provinces.

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The clean fuel standard will apply nationally, not just in Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where Trudeau’s first carbon tax applies.

Unlike the carbon tax, there will be no rebates.

But keep in mind that the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that even with refunds applied to Trudeau’s carbon tax, which will be mailed to Canadians in those four provinces starting July 15, most households (60%) will find themselves financially worse off if the impact of the carbon tax on the economy is fully taken into account.

PBO Yves Giroux estimates the average Ontario household will be $360 worse off this year, increasing annually to $1,461 in 2030; the average Alberta household has deteriorated by $671 this year, increasing annually to reach $2,282 in 2030; the average Saskatchewan household lost $390 this year, increasing annually to $1,464 in 2030 and the average Manitoba household lost $299 this year, increasing annually to $1,145 in 2030.

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The Trudeau government continues to claim that 80% of these households end up getting by financially.

He also says Trudeau’s carbon tax and clean fuel standard will help Canada meet its goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40-45% below 2005 levels by 2030 and to net zero by 2050.

But no Canadian government, Liberal or Conservative, has met a single emissions target it has set in 34 years.

Trudeau has already missed his 2020 target despite the global recession caused by the pandemic in which emissions everywhere fell dramatically.

At last week’s G-7 meeting in Germany, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy and Japan endorsed efforts to to increase global production of oil and liquid natural gas to offset disruptions to global energy supplies resulting from countries trying to recover from the economic damage caused by the pandemic recession and the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The G-7, including Canada, claim that their policies are compatible with meeting the UN’s 2030 and 2050 emissions reduction targets, but this claim is nonsense.

Last year, for example, global energy emissions rose 6% to 36.3 billion tonnes, their highest level on record, according to the International Energy Agency.

So while Trudeau is increasing the cost of fossil fuels for Canadians at home, he is simultaneously approving policies to increase the use of fossil fuels globally.

lgoldstein@postmedia.com