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Economy

Politics the only consistency in carbon tax policy

Published

1 year ago

4 minute read

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Lee Harding

Never mind that there is no easy connection between CO2 and temperatures, except in […]

The misplaced idea that carbon dioxide is pollution undergirds the dubious concept of the carbon tax. Never mind that there is no easy connection between CO2 and temperatures, except in the easily questioned computer models created by climate change proponents.  Nevertheless, the carbon tax policy is the signature climate change policy of the Trudeau Government. This tax has raised energy prices across the country and supercharged inflation without any impact on reducing harmless carbon dioxide emissions.

The main impact of the carbon tax is to reduce of everybody’s living standards just a bit more each year. Finally, it seems to have succeeded in doing something else: undermining Liberal support. The awkward attempt to solve this political and policy problem sent federal arguments for the carbon tax into complete contradiction last week.

On October 26 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a three-year moratorium on carbon taxes for home heating oil, a move that was good politics but curious policy.

“We’ve heard clearly from Atlantic Canadians through our amazing Atlantic MPs that since the federal pollution price came into force … certain features of that pollution price needed adjusting to work for everyone,” said Trudeau.

You see, last July Atlantic provinces had to give Ottawa worthy proposals to keep themselves out of Ottawa’s carbon pricing scheme. They failed, so their citizens have felt the pinch. Forty percent of Atlantic Canadians, but only three percent of all Canadians use fuel oil.

This reality facilitated a political solution–a national policy with mostly regional consequences for Liberal support. The problem was how to spin it.

“We are doubling down on our fight against climate change and…supporting Canadians while we fight climate change,” the PM said.

“Economists and experts around the world have long known that putting a price on carbon emissions is the best way to drive down those emissions that cause climate change, is the cheapest, most efficient and most impactful way and it’s working,” the PM insisted.

This circle can’t be squared, except politically. The fuel oil announcement was made hours before Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre held his scheduled “Axe the Tax” rally against carbon taxes in Windsor, N.S., the riding of Liberal Atlantic Caucus chair Kody Blois.

Put together, this is a national but regional policy to adjust a carbon tax that works but does not work. It’s doubtful that taxes or grants will change the weather, of course, but fuel oil was unworthy of an exemption.

The heat output per gallon of fuel oil is 138,690 British Thermal Units and almost equal to that of natural gas (139,050 BTU). However, natural gas only produces 117 lbs of CO2 per million BTU, whereas distillate fuel oil produces more than 160 lbs. The worst “polluters” just got a break.

Meanwhile, residents west of Quebec, where natural gas use ranges from 49 to 77 per cent, will pay carbon taxes, as they always have–and more so as they increase every April. It’s moves like this that have allowed a federal government to maintain power that hasn’t won the popular vote since 2015.

Poilievre’s plan to end the carbon tax is a winner for policy sanity.

Lee Harding is a Research Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy.

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Bjorn Lomborg

The stupidity of Net Zero | Bjorn Lomborg on how climate alarmism leads to economic crisis

Published on April 10, 2025

By

From spiked on YouTube

Note: This interview is focused on Europe and the UK.  It very much applies to Canada. The 2025 Federal Election which will see Canadians choose between a more common sense approach, and spending the next 4 years continuing down the path of pursuing “The Stupidity of Net Zero”.

European industry is in freefall, and Net Zero is to blame.

Here, climate economist Bjorn Lomborg – author of Best Things First and False Alarm – explains how panic over climate change is doing far more damage than climate change itself.  Swapping cheap and dependable fossil fuels for unreliable and expensive renewables costs our economies trillions, but for little environmental gain, Lomborg says.

Plus, he tackles the myth of the ‘climate apocalypse’ and explains why there are more polar bears than ever.

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Business

Scott Bessent Says Trump’s Goal Was Always To Get Trading Partners To Table After Major Pause Announcement

Published on April 9, 2025

By

 

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Harold Hutchison

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent told reporters Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s goal was to have major trading partners agree to negotiate after Trump announced a 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for many countries after dozens reached out to the administration.

Trump announced the pause via a Wednesday post on Truth Social that also announced substantial increases in tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States, saying 75 countries had asked to talk. Bessent said during a press event held alongside White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that Trump had obtained “maximum leverage” to get trading partners to negotiate with the April 2 announcement of reciprocal tariffs.

“This was his strategy all along,” Bessent told reporters during an impromptu press conference at the White House. “And that, you know, you might even say that he goaded China into a bad position. They, they responded. They have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actors. And, and we are willing to cooperate with our allies and with our trading partners who did not retaliate. It wasn’t a hard message: Don’t retaliate, things will turn out well.”

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WATCH:

China imposed retaliatory tariffs on American exports to the communist country Wednesday, imposing an 84% tariff on U.S. goods after Trump responded to a 34% tariff by taking American tariffs to 104%.

“Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately,” Trump said. “At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.”

“They kept escalating and escalating, and now they have 125% tariffs that will be effective immediately,” Bessent said during the press conference.

Bessent said that China’s actions would not harm the United States as much as it would their own economy.

“We will see what China does,” Bessent said. “But what I am certain of, what I’m certain of, is that what China is doing will affect their economy much more than it will ours, because they have an export-driven, flood the world with cheap export model, and the rest of the world now understands.”

The Dow Jones Industrial average closed up 2,962.86 points Wednesday, with the NASDAQ climbing by 1,755.84 points and the S&P 500 rising 446.05 points, according to FoxBusiness.

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