Business
Carbon tax, not carve out, Trudeau’s real failure
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Author: Franco Terrazzano
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stepped in it when he removed the carbon tax from furnace oil, while leaving 97 per cent of Canadians out in the cold.
Even in Atlantic Canada, where Trudeau tried to buy off MPs with the carve out, 77 per cent of people in the region support carbon tax relief for everyone.
But Trudeau’s mistake wasn’t providing relief. The real lesson here is Trudeau never won the hearts and minds of Canadians. And he lost credibility early on.
Months before the 2019 election, the former environment minister said the government had “no intention” of raising the carbon tax beyond 11 cents per litre of gas.
After the election, Trudeau announced he would keep cranking up his carbon tax until it reached 37 cents per litre.
Trudeau and his ministers repeat the myth that eight-out-of-ten families get more money in rebates than they pay in carbon taxes.
Their favourite talking point limps on despite the obvious reality that a government can’t raise taxes, skim money off the top to pay for hundreds of administration bureaucrats and still make everyone better off.
In fact, the carbon tax will cost the average family up to $710 more than they get back in rebates this year, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
The government said carbon taxes reduce emissions.
But even in British Columbia, which had the first and (for years) costliest carbon tax, emissions rose. B.C. imposed its carbon tax in 2008. B.C.’s emissions have increased between 2007 and 2019 – the last year before the pandemic brought economic activity to a screeching halt.
And even if the carbon tax cut emissions at home, “Canada’s own emissions are not large enough to materially impact climate change,” as the PBO explains.
Making it more expensive to live in Canada won’t reduce emissions in China, Russia, India or the United States. And this leads to Trudeau’s diplomatic failure.
At the United Nations, the Trudeau government launched the Global Carbon Pricing Challenge to get more countries to impose carbon taxes.
“The impact and effectiveness of carbon pricing increases as more countries adopt pricing solutions,” the Trudeau government acknowledged.
The world’s largest economy, the United States, rejects carbon taxes.
President Joe Biden, a Democrat, hasn’t imposed a carbon tax. Good luck convincing a Republican president to impose one.
The U.S. is the rule, not the exception.
About three-quarters of countries don’t have a national carbon tax, according to the World Bank’s Carbon Pricing Dashboard.
And while Trudeau raised taxes, peers like the United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, South Korea, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Ireland, India, Israel, Italy, New Zealand and Portugal, among others, cut fuel taxes.
If Canada’s carbon tax is essential for the environment, shouldn’t all taxpayers pay the same rate?
A driver in Alberta pays a carbon tax of 14 cent per litre of gas. In Quebec, the carbon tax is about 12 cents. By 2030, that gap will grow to more than 14 cents per litre.
Quebec’s special deal proves Trudeau’s carbon tax is about politics, not the environment.
When crafting the carbon tax, the government never truly asked the people what they thought. Everyone wants a better environment. You won’t find opposition to that.
But did anyone ask Canadians if they support a carbon tax even if it means average families will lose hundreds of dollars every year? Did anyone ask Canadians if they support a carbon tax even though most countries don’t?
Trudeau is displaying rank regional favouritism. But his real mistake wasn’t the carve out that favoured Atlantic Canada. It’s that he never won the hearts and minds of the people and failed to acknowledge carbon taxes cause real pain.
Business
Parks Canada right to back down from deer-cull boondoggle
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
By Carson Binda
Taxpayers are glad to see Parks Canada backing away from a $12-million deer cull on Sidney Island.
“Parks Canada’s plan to blow $12-million on a deer cull was ridiculous from day one,” said Carson Binda, B.C. Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “Parks Canada is right to cancel the project, but it’s worrying that it took them this much wasted money to figure it out.”
Parks Canada used so-called sharpshooters in helicopters, firing down on invasive fallow deer from above, during phase one of the cull which occurred last December. The so-called sharpshooters killed 84 deer, but only 63 were the correct species. The cost for phase one came in at $834,000, roughly $10,000 per deer.
Subsequently, Parks Canada erected fencing made of fish nets around the 12-square-kilometer Island to trap the deer, in anticipation for a second round of culls which were scheduled for Nov. 15.
Several animals became entangled in the netting, painfully thrashing themselves to death.
“Seeing deer thrashing to death because of bureaucratic incompetence is heartbreaking,” Binda said. “Parks Canada needs to explain how this happened and how much taxpayer cash was wasted on this project before the cancellation.”
Residents of Sidney Island and local hunters have been culling deer on the island for years, for free. Last fall 54 deer were culled by local hunters at no cost to the taxpayer.
“Local hunters filling their freezers at no cost to the taxpayer is obviously better than Parks Canada blowing millions of dollars to shoot the wrong deer from helicopters and leaving others to suffer in a net,” Binda said. “Hopefully the bureaucrats learn from their mistakes with this boondoggle.”
Business
Canada’s struggle against transnational crime & money laundering
From the Macdonald-Laurier Institute
By Alex Dalziel and Jamie Ferrill
In this episode of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute’s Inside Policy Talks podcast, Senior Fellow and National Security Project Lead Alex Dalziel explores the underreported issue of trade-based money laundering (TBML) with Dr. Jamie Ferrill, the head of financial crime studies at Charles Sturt University in Canberra, Australia and a former Canada Border Services Agency officer.
The discussion focuses on how organized crime groups use global trade transactions to disguise illicit proceeds and the threat this presents to the Canada’s trade relationship with the US and beyond.
Definition of TBML: Trade-based money laundering disguises criminal proceeds by moving value through trade transactions instead of transferring physical cash. Criminals (usually) exploit international trade by manipulating trade documents, engaging in phantom shipping, and altering invoices to disguise illicit funds as legitimate commerce, bypassing conventional financial scrutiny. As Dr. Ferrill explains, “we have dirty money that’s been generated through things like drug trafficking, human trafficking, arms trafficking, sex trafficking, and that money needs to be cleaned in one way or another. Trade is one of the ways that that’s done.”
A Pervasive Problem: TBML is challenging to detect due to the vast scale and complexity of global trade, making it an attractive channel for organized crime groups. Although global estimates are imprecise, the Financial Action Task Force and The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) suggests 2-5% of GDP could be tied to money laundering, representing trillions of dollars annually. In Canada, this could mean over $70 billion in potentially laundered funds each year. Despite the scope of TBML, Canada has seen no successful prosecutions for criminal money laundering through trade, highlighting significant gaps in identifying, investigating and prosecuting these complex cases.
Canada’s Vulnerabilities: Along with the sheer volume and complexity of global trade, Canada’s vulnerabilities stem from gaps in anti-money laundering regulation, particularly in high-risk sectors like real estate, luxury goods, and legal services, where criminals exploit weak oversight. Global trade exemplifies the vulnerabilities in oversight, where gaps and limited controls create substantial opportunities for money laundering. A lack of comprehensive export controls also limits Canada’s ability to monitor goods leaving the country effectively. Dr. Ferrill notes that “If we’re seen as this weak link in the process, that’s going to have significant implications on trade partnerships,” underscoring the potential political risks to bilateral trade if Canada fails to address these issues.
International and Private Sector Cooperation: Combating TBML effectively requires strong international cooperation, particularly between Canada and key trade partners like the U.S. The private sector—including freight forwarders, customs brokers, and financial institutions—plays a crucial role in spotting suspicious activities along the supply chain. As Dr. Ferrill emphasizes, “Canada and the U.S. can definitely work together more efficiently and effectively to share and then come up with some better strategies,” pointing to the need for increased collaboration to strengthen oversight and disrupt these transnational crime networks.
Looking to further understand the threat of transnational organized crime to Canada’s borders?
Check out Inside Policy Talks recent podcasts with Christian Leuprecht, Todd Hataley and Alan Bersin.
To learn more about Dr. Ferrill’s research on TBML, check out her chapter in Dirty Money: Financial Crime in Canada.
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