…we have ended up with the worst of both worlds. None of the inefficient policies was repealed, carbon taxes were layered on top of them and now the government is charging ahead with even more misguided climate regulations. The recent throne speech brings back for the millionth time home energy retrofit subsidies, despite ample evidence (going back to the old CHIP grants in the 1970s) that most of the money is wasted, paying people to do things they were planning to do anyway. Even worse is the proposed Clean Fuels Standard, a high-cost boondoggle that aims to bring the carbon intensity of fuels down by a small amount, at what will be an exorbitant cost per tonne that far exceeds the carbon tax rate.
So if, as the government insists, carbon taxes “work,” why all the regulations? The reality is the government never understood or endorsed the economic theory of carbon taxes, they just liked the virtue signalling and the revenue.
The article presupposes that there is a proper way to do the wrong thing. Canada sequesters more carbon dioxide than it emits even if it weren’t a non problem. The planet needs more CO2.
The analogy we used to use was “it’s like arguing over whether it’s better to put strawberry jam or apricot jam in your gas tank. The correct answer is ‘don’t put jam in your gas tank, you dumbass’.”
Your last few words answer all questions, virtue signalling is trudopes way of saying to those he wants to impress, UN climate change devotees & the green earth muffins that he’s just like them and that after he’s finished destroying Canada hey can safely give him a cushy high paid job and he’ll help destroy the world. The extra revenue is even more obvious, “As a socialist I think of new ways to spend other peoples money even before I take my first breath of air in the morning so I need a never ending supply of the green stuff and while I take that first breath when people breath out they exhale C02, how can I take breathing? “
Excellent column.
But more importantly carbon taxes are unethical. They artificially inflate the true price of an absolutley necessary commodity in order to confuse consumers into believing that alternatives are cost effective when in fact they are not.
The government is interfering in the free market in order to put oil and gas companies out of business, cost to consumers be damned.
Oil and gas companies will do fine, just not in Canada. Trudeau and the Liberals are merely following orders to eliminate Canada as a global competitor. And Canadians are totally fine with that.
Well, if you put carbon taxes up, my 90 year old dad will have to cut down even more trees for firewood, I guess.
Not sure if that’s what the goal was, but there you go.
Oh, and if they start taxing firewood more…he’s not as good a shot as he used to be, and with COVID and all that…I’d put a bullet proof vest on the greenie coming to collect it.
Having read this, how many of my fellow Canadians are prepared to say all Canadians are stupid? Well, because they are.
I think I can recall saying that a few times before. You aren’t alone. Saying it here is rather preaching to the choir, though, except for a few dipsticks. You know who they are.
I shall be working the “Carbon Free” /”Recycle theft ring.
Old tires ,burnt with Oxygen assistence.
Solving two non problems for the price of none.
When are we ditching these Eastern Douchebags?
Let them freeze in the dark,drowning in their own ‘virtue’.
Considering that Alberta, Saskatchewan and to a smaller extent, BC supply virtually all the gas, diesel, jet fuel and natural gas used in snooty old Kan-eh-duh east/zentrul, they should be careful what they wish for. Personally, I would shut in any pipeline east to the voting Zentrul of the Universe, until they learn some manners. We already send baksheesh called “Equalization”, so they can pay their bills on time. Nest paw? Ferme ta gueule, astie, tabernac….caaaaawwwwlisss!
Get the message, Sock Buoy? https://energynow.ca/2020/10/the-oil-and-gas-sectors-contribution-to-canadas-economy-in-a-slump-year-lennie-kaplan-and-mark-milke/
Without that supply, you don’t fly to Tofino to surf. Period.
The whole climate scam is just that. Solar farms destroy wildlife habitat and renders the land useless for other purposes. Wind and wave turbines are sorely inefficient and cause increased bird and fish mortality. Burning wood emits CO2 and CO, but the eco-creeps yell and scream that it does not. You have to cut down trees for wood burning.
The article mentioned “economists”. That is an error. Real economists find taxes, while a necessary evil for governments to raise funds, distort supply and demand. The ones in the article are confused and are communists, not economists.
One a$$hole commenting in the article was in whole Lieberal about the carbon taxes. He should be the first to volunteer to have his heart cut and then be sacrificed to the sun god.
“And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
Plus in this case when it never moved in the first place subsidize it from day one – forever.
Covid is a warmup for one world government climate change takeover. If they can mask you as deaths plummet, they can get to to do anything The hobgoblins are coming to roost and an ignorant and apathetic voter is their agent of shared misery.
They’re going to try and reduce the “carbon intensity” of hydrocarbons? Good luck with that.
Meticulous Research Review Questions Environmental Impacts and Feasibility of “Green Energy” Transition
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/10/07/surprising-science-theres-no-such-thing-as-clean-energy/
Basically carbon (user) taxes work Only After deregulation and then Only If prohibitive enough to change consumption And With no rebates.
The average walking talking half-witted Canadian doesn’t understand a tax that doesn’t give Them a rebate.
So, as stated the other day, the carbon tax is just a return of a hidden GST or manufacturer’s tax.
Pretty soon the only things Canadians will produce is smug virtue signalling while they freeze to death.