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Dan McTeague

The Carbon Tax is part of a bigger plan to change the way you live

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From Canadians for Affordable Energy

Dan McTeague Written By Dan McTeague

On April 1, the carbon tax is going to rise from $65 per tonne to $80 per tonne, and it seems Canadians are noticing this jump more than those of the past few years.

Back in 2019, the Trudeau government announced its 566% carbon tax hike, starting at $15 per tonne and increasing yearly until 2030, when it would reach a staggering $170 per tonne. It received some attention at the time, but there was not a great deal of pushback. Presumably the numbers were too abstract to catch people’s attention and 2030 seemed a long way off.

But today things are different. It helps that Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre has been campaigning aggressively against the tax, with rallies and petitions to ‘Axe the Tax.’

Even Liberal premiers, such as Andrew Furey of Newfoundland and Labrador, have been pleading with Justin Trudeau to hit pause on the increase. In fact, a total of seven premiers in the country have spoken out against the tax, asking for a delay in its increase.

That’s because they recognize the tax is hurting Canadians. The cost of everything has gone up. It’s gotten so tough for businesses that some restaurants have begun adding a ‘carbon tax’ line item to the final bill. And if Canadians think it is bad now, wait until 2030 when the carbon tax will more than double its current rate.

The other reason people are more aware of the increase is because, well, the tax is working. It’s doing what it was designed to do, though maybe not in the way you might think. The goal is not simply to reduce emissions — in fact emissions have gone up. The goal is actually more nefarious than that. Let me explain.

The carbon tax is one of the pillars of the United Nations, World Economic Forum (WEF) Net-Zero-by 2050 agenda. In order to achieve their objective, they need all of us to fundamentally alter the way we live our daily lives. They want us to drive less, fly less, eat less meat (and more bugs). The carbon tax is a punitive means of achieving this.

In fact, the Trudeau government’s own Healthy Climate, Healthy Economy plan articulates the logic of the tax quite well when it says, “The principle is straightforward: a carbon price establishes how much businesses and households need to pay for their pollution. The higher the price, the greater the incentive to pollute less, conserve energy and invest in low-carbon solutions.”

It’s worth noting that they’re using a pretty loose definition of ‘pollution’ here, because we all know that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant — it is a gas which makes life on earth possible.

Even so, their intention is clearly stated — they figure that, if the price of fuelling up your car, going on a vacation and heating your home gets high enough, you will have to drastically alter the way you live your day-to-day life.

You will stop flying, cut back on driving, use fewer appliances. And really, you’ll just get used to having less money, until — following the slippery slope to its conclusion — you will “own nothing and be happy,” in the words of that infamous WEF tweet.

Which is to say, the carbon tax is a punishment for participating in normal economic activity, for living a regular life. Of course, for the time being you can catch a break if you live in Atlantic Canada and heat your home with oil, but if you live in the prairies and heat your home with natural gas, sorry, but you’re out of luck. You aren’t in a Liberal riding, after all!

And even then, the Liberals and their activist friends are banking on Canadians reducing their carbon emissions in order to achieve their Net Zero 2050 target.

So good for Pierre Poilievre, Andrew Furey and the other premiers for pushing back on the carbon tax.

But let’s not forget that, as noxious as it is, it’s only one small part of the Liberals’ Net Zero agenda.

Eliminating the carbon tax is merely cutting off one head of the hydra. If Canada’s political leaders are really concerned with affordability, then they need to target the monster’s heart.

It’s time that we not only axe the tax, but we need to scrap Net Zero.

Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy

An 18 year veteran of the House of Commons, Dan is widely known in both official languages for his tireless work on energy pricing and saving Canadians money through accurate price forecasts. His Parliamentary initiatives, aimed at helping Canadians cope with affordable energy costs, led to providing Canadians heating fuel rebates on at least two occasions. Widely sought for his extensive work and knowledge in energy pricing, Dan continues to provide valuable insights to North American media and policy makers. He brings three decades of experience and proven efforts on behalf of consumers in both the private and public spheres. Dan is committed to improving energy affordability for Canadians and promoting the benefits we all share in having a strong and robust energy sector.

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Liberals Have Cut Canada’s Electric Vehicle Subsidies, Now It’s Time to Kill the 2035 Mandate

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By Dan McTeague

Former Liberal MP Dan McTeague calls on Mark Carney and all other leadership candidates to kill Trudeau’s electric car mandate.

President of Canadians for Affordable Energy (CAE) and former Liberal MP Dan McTeague says, “It’s good that the Trudeau government are ending their taxpayer funded electric vehicle subsidy, but it’s time to take the most important step of all and kill the government’s mandate that all vehicles bought in Canada be battery powered by 2035.”

As of January 10th, Transport Canada announced that it “paused” its financial incentive to purchase electric vehicles which had provided up to $5,000 of taxpayers money to anyone who purchases an electric vehicle. Quebec ended its $7,000 subsidy last February. However, the government policy requiring that every car sold in Canada after 2035 be electric remains in force.

“Even with these giveaways in place, it was a stretch for hard working Canadians to afford an EV,” said McTeague. “We at CAE are happy for Canadian taxpayers that the program is coming to an end. But this move must be followed up by abolishing the mandates on unaffordable electric vehicles once and for all.”

“My hope is that each and every Liberal Leadership candidate stands up and acknowledges that mandating that all new cars in Canada be electric by 2035 is wrong and that that policy needs to be scrapped,” added McTeague.

Dan McTeague served in Parliament as a Liberal MP for 18 years, and is now Executive Director of Canadians for Affordable Energy. CAE counts on it’s 60,000 supporters nationwide, you can find more information here: https://www.affordableenergy.ca/

For more information contact: 

Dan McTeague
647-220-0114
[email protected]

Support Dan’s Work to Keep Canadian Energy Affordable!

Canadians for Affordable Energy is run by Dan McTeague, former MP and founder of Gas Wizard. We stand up and fight for more affordable energy.

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Dan McTeague

Mark Carney would be bad for Canada

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By Dan McTeague

 

Carney is a champion of ESG, and the founder and co-chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ,) which seeks to harness the might of global finance to bring about a Net-Zero global economy

Whether Carney will actually throw his hat in the ring is hard to predict. He did announce that he will “be considering this decision closely with my family over the coming few days.” But his years-long  flirtation with electoral politics suggests that Carney is politically ambitious. And in the tradition of the politically ambitious, he’s lining up his constituents. At this very moment he’s busy making calls, and promises, to Liberal MPs looking for their support. Over the next several days we will hear an unending stream of praise for Carney, that he’s a ‘breath of fresh air,’ that he’s ‘just what Canada needs,’ and on and on.

Well don’t you believe it. Because one thing is for certain — Canada does not need another uber-elite, WEF hobnobbing, Green Agenda-pushing leader at the helm of any political party.

Let’s not forget who Carney is.

The former Governor of the Banks of Canada and England, Carney currently runs the megafirm Brookfield, whose offices he recently moved from Canada to the U.S., and serves as the UN Special Envoy for Climate Leadership and Finance.

Rich, established, and part of the green elite: that is Mark Carney.

warned about Carney during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 when he — along with climate activist and Trudeau-whisperer Gerald Butts — was pushing hard for what he called a ‘green recovery.’ At the time Carney was framing the economic and health crisis as an opportunity to ‘leapfrog’ into a new economy. Four years later and we have all experienced first hand the real meaning of this utopian green vision — soaring energy costs which have made it harder to heat our homes, gas up our cars and buy groceries.

Conservatives call him “Carbon Tax Carney,” a nickname which his apologists have started to say is unfair, since after years of championing the Carbon Tax, he has recently distanced himself from it.

Well, of course he has! Support for the Carbon Tax has cratered across the country, and Carney is just one of many long-time supporters jumping ship in the hope that their reputation — and their wider agenda — doesn’t get sucked down with it.

Carney has been, and continues to be, a carnival barker for interventionist policies and regulation to control carbon emissions. When it comes to action on the environment and the economy Carney is of the “just do what we smart people say” school. He constantly talks of an impending climate crisis, and supports his alarmist fellow travellers like climate doomster Greta Thunberg, whom he has praised for her “many positive contributions.”

Carney has persistently advocated for strict controls on corporate governance to direct support — that is, money — towards his favored fuels and technologies. In fact, his apparent “about face” on the Carbon Tax (he said it “served a purpose up until now”) came about in the context of his Senate testimony in favor of Bill S-243, the “Climate-Aligned Finance Act,” which seeks to make it nearly impossible for banks to invest in, or loan money to, oil and gas projects in Canada, and tries to force financial institutions to appoint board members ideologically opposed to hydrocarbon energy.

Carney is a champion of ESG, and the founder and co-chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ,) which seeks to harness the might of global finance to bring about a Net-Zero global economy. After a lot of initial excitement and acclaim (at least from the Davos-brigade), GFANZ has had trouble coping with the difficult economic times which Carney’s preferred policies have contributed to bringing about, not to mention the potential for antitrust litigation from the U.S. Department of Justice, which seems increasingly likely. Some of the group’s biggest members — Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, CitiGroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo — have dropped out of the alliance just in the past month.

That might mean that GFANZ is not long for this world, but even so it should remain as a black mark on Carney’s résumé. It demonstrates that his economic instincts, whichsome are praising, are always towards more control, by the likes of him, over how the rest of us live our lives. And its downfall likely foreshadows what a Prime Minister Carney would do to Canada’s economy.

On energy and the environment, Carney is Trudeau with Wall Street and central bank experience: a green ideologue, but a more sophisticated one.

Canadians are fed up with green ideologues, polished or otherwise. Their ideas undermine our economic well-being, by making energy a lot more expensive. Ultimately, a Liberal Party under Mark Carney’s leadership would represent more of the same green grifting policies we saw under Justin Trudeau.

Dan McTeague is President of Canadians for Affordable Energy.

Support Dan’s Work to Keep Canadian Energy Affordable!

Canadians for Affordable Energy is run by Dan McTeague, former MP and founder of Gas Wizard. We stand up and fight for more affordable energy.

Donate Now

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