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Economy

Trudeau punishing Canadians for surviving cold winter

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Author: Franco Terrazzano

Millions of Canadians are keeping an anxious eye on their thermostats, praying the power stays on and bracing for carbon-taxed heat bills to arrive.

A frigid winter cold snap delivered daytime temperatures in the minus thirties with overnight windchills of more than minus 50 in parts of Canada. Natural gas furnaces are running around the clock, keeping families from freezing and water pipes from bursting.

The situation got scary Saturday when an Alberta-wide alarm blared across smartphones, TVs and radios. The province warned the power grid was maxing out and rolling blackouts were about to hit.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith took to social media imploring Albertans to turn off their lights, stop using appliances and hunker down to save the power grid from blacking out. Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe tagged in, announcing his province was sending 153 megawatts to Alberta.

When it’s minus 40, running the furnace isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. And yet, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is punishing Canadians with a carbon tax for the sin of staying warm and staying alive in winter.

The federal carbon tax is currently set at $65 per tonne, costing 12 cents per cubic meter of natural gas and 10 cents per litre of propane. An average Canadian home uses about 2,385 cubic metres of natural gas per year, so the carbon tax will cost them about $300 extra to heat their home.

Even after the rebates, average families will be out hundreds of dollars this year because of the higher heating bills, gas prices, inflation and the economic damage that comes with the carbon tax, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.

But the Trudeau government isn’t done. On April 1, the carbon tax is going up to $80 per tonne. That will cost 15 cents per cubic metre of natural gas.

In fact, Trudeau plans to crank up his carbon tax every year. Over the next three years, Trudeau’s carbon tax will cost the average family $1,100 on natural gas alone.

Canada is a cold place. Keeping the heat on isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity. And Trudeau’s carbon tax punishes families who need to stay warm during the winter months. Even worse, Trudeau knows the carbon tax makes it more expensive for families to stay warm.

“We are putting more money back in your pocket and making it easier for you to find affordable, long-term solutions to heat your home,” Trudeau said, when he removed the carbon tax from home heating oil for three years.

This was an admission of an obvious reality: the carbon tax makes life more expensive. Otherwise, why would Trudeau take the carbon tax off a form of heating energy?

Trudeau’s carbon tax-carve out was a political ploy to keep his Atlantic MPs from revolting while support for the Liberals plummeted in their typical stronghold.

While many Atlantic Canadians use heating oil, 97 per cent of Canadian families use other forms of energy, like natural gas or propane, and won’t get any relief from the feds this winter.

Even in Atlantic Canada, 77 per cent of people in the region want carbon tax relief for all Canadians this winter, according to a Leger poll commission by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Provincial politicians of all stripes have demanded the feds take the carbon tax off everyone’s heating bill.

That’s because staying warm isn’t a partisan issue. All Canadians need to heat their home. And we shouldn’t be punished with a tax just to survive the winter.

Trudeau should completely scrap his carbon tax. But at the very least he should extend the same relief he provided to Atlantic Canadians and take the carbon tax off everyone’s home heating bill.

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Premiers fight to lower gas taxes as Trudeau hikes pump costs

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Jay Goldberg 

Thirty-nine hundred dollars – that’s how much the typical two-car Ontario family is spending on gas taxes at the pump this year.

You read that right. That’s not the overall fuel bill. That’s just taxes.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau keeps increasing your gas bill, while Premier Doug Ford is lowering it.

Ford’s latest gas tax cut extension is music to taxpayers’ ears. Ford’s 6.4 cent per litre gas tax cut, temporarily introduced in July 2022, is here to stay until at least next June.

Because of the cut, a two-car family has saved more than $1,000 so far. And that’s welcome news for Ontario taxpayers, because Trudeau is planning yet another carbon tax hike next April.

Trudeau has raised the overall tax burden at the pumps every April for the past five years. Next spring, he plans to raise gas taxes by another three cents per litre, bringing the overall gas tax burden for Ontarians to almost 60 cents per litre.

While Trudeau keeps hiking costs for taxpayers at the pumps, premiers of all stripes have been stepping up to the plate to blunt the impact of his punitive carbon tax.

Obviously, Ford has stepped up to the plate and has lowered gas taxes. But he’s not alone.

In Manitoba, NDP Premier Wab Kinew fully suspended the province’s 14 cent per litre gas tax for a year. And in Newfoundland, Liberal Premier Andrew Furey cut the gas tax by 8.05 cents per litre for nearly two-and-a-half years.

It’s a tale of two approaches: the Trudeau government keeps making life more expensive at the pumps, while premiers of all stripes are fighting to get costs down.

Families still have to get to work, get the kids to school and make it to hockey practice. And they can’t afford increasingly high gas taxes. Common sense premiers seem to get it, while Ottawa has its head in the clouds.

When Ford announced his gas tax cut extension, he took aim at the Liberal carbon tax mandated by the Trudeau government in Ottawa.

Ford noted the carbon tax is set to rise to 20.9 cents per litre next April, “bumping up the cost of everything once again and it’s absolutely ridiculous.”

“Our government will always fight against it,” Ford said.

But there’s some good news for taxpayers: reprieve may be on the horizon.

Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s promises to axe the carbon tax as soon as he takes office.

With a federal election scheduled for next fall, the federal carbon tax’s days may very well be numbered.

Scrapping the carbon tax would make a huge difference in the lives of everyday Canadians.

Right now, the carbon tax costs 17.6 cents per litre. For a family filling up two cars once a week, that’s nearly $24 a week in carbon taxes at the pump.

Scrapping the carbon tax could save families more than $1,200 a year at the pumps. Plus, there would be savings on the cost of home heating, food, and virtually everything else.

While the Trudeau government likes to argue that the carbon tax rebates make up for all these additional costs, the Parliamentary Budget Officer says it’s not so.

The PBO has shown that the typical Ontario family will lose nearly $400 this year due to the carbon tax, even after the rebates.

That’s why premiers like Ford, Kinew and Furey have stepped up to the plate.

Canadians pay far too much at the pumps in taxes. While Trudeau hikes the carbon tax year after year, provincial leaders like Ford are keeping costs down and delivering meaningful relief for struggling families.

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Bank of Canada admits ‘significant’ number of citizens would resist digital dollar

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

A significant number’ of Canadians are suspicious of government overreach and would resist any measures by the government or central bank to create digital forms of official money.

A Bank of Canada study has found that Canadians are very wary of a government-backed digital currency, concluding that “significant number” of citizens would resist the implementation of such a system.

The study, conducted by the Bank of Canada, found that a “significant number” of Canadians are suspicious of government overreach, and would resist any measures by the government or central bank to create digital forms of official money.  

According to results from the BOC’s report titled The Consumer Value Proposition For A Hypothetical Digital Canadian Dollar, “cash remains an important method of payment” for Canadians and “[c]ertain groups may strongly resist a digital dollar if they conflate its launch with the end of cash issuance.” 

The BOC noted that not only would a “significant number” of Canadians “reject” digital money, but that for some “mindset segments, their lack of interest in a hypothetical digital Canadian dollar was heavily influenced by perceptions of government overreach.” 

As reported by LifeSiteNews in September, the BOC has already said that plans to create a digital “dollar,” also known as a central bank digital currency (CBDC), have been shelved. 

The shelving came after the BOC had already forged ahead and filed a trademark for a digital currency, as LifeSiteNews previously reported. 

Officials from Canada’s central bank said that a digital currency, or electronic “loonie,” will no longer be considered after years of investigating bringing one to market.  

However, that does not mean the BOC is still not researching or exploring other options when it comes to digital money. As noted by researchers, despite there being some “interest” in a “hypothetical digital Canadian dollar,” that “interest does not necessarily translate to adoption.” 

“Most participants felt well served by current means of payment,” noted the study, adding, “Individuals who support the issuance of a hypothetical digital Canadian dollar did not imagine themselves using it regularly.” 

“They were skeptical of the need for this new form of money and of its reliability,” read the report, which also noted, “They did not trust that concepts were secure or that their personal information would be kept private.” 

Given the results from the report, the bank concluded that “[b]road early adoption” of a digital dollar “is unlikely given that available payment methods meet the needs of most users.” 

“Financially vulnerable segments often have the most to gain from this payment method but are most resistant to adoption. Important considerations for appeal and adoption potential include universal merchant acceptance, low costs, easy access, simplified online payments, shared payment features, budgeting tools and customizable security and privacy settings,” it noted.  

Digital currencies have been touted as the future by some government officials, but, as LifeSiteNews has reported before, many experts warn that such technology would restrict freedom and could be used as a “control tool” against citizens, similar to China’s pervasive social credit system.  

Most Canadians do not want a digital dollar, as previously reported by LifeSiteNews. A public survey launched by the BOC to gauge Canadians’ taste for a digital dollar revealed that an overwhelming majority of citizens want to “leave cash alone” and not proceed with a digital iteration of the national currency.  

The BOC last August admitted that the creation of a CBDC is not even necessary, as many people rely on cash to pay for things. The bank concluded that the introduction of a digital currency would only be feasible if consumers demanded its release.  

In August, LifeSiteNews also reported that the Conservative Party is looking to gather support for a bill that would outright ban the federal government from ever creating a digital currency and make it so that cash is kept as the preferred means of settling debts.    

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre promised that if he is elected prime minister, he would stop any  implementation of a “digital currency” or a compulsory “digital ID” system.  

Prominent opponents of CBDCs have been strongly advocating that citizens use cash whenever possible and boycott businesses that do not accept cash payments as a means of slowing down the imposition of CBDCs.  

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