Economy
A Fair Deal Includes Energy Security
This article contributed by Josh Andrus, Executive Director of Project Confederation
Energy security.
It’s a concept that has been ignored by many – including our federal government in Ottawa – for far too long.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has suddenly helped the world realize what’s been obvious to many Albertans for a long time – we still need oil and gas!
The same parade of politicians who crusaded to save the world from the threat of “catastrophic” climate change are now coming to the realization that there is a fundamental flaw in the Green New Deal / Leave It In The Ground / Build Back Better strategy.
Energy is the industry that powers every other industry – and as such, a safe supply of affordable, reliable energy is not only good for the domestic economy but also a crucial tool in an increasingly volatile international geopolitical landscape.
Earlier this week, after a big push by our friends at the Alberta Institute, and many other political and non-profit groups, the federal government finally announced that they would ban the importation of Russian oil.
Russia’s aggressive actions, and the related uncertainty, have now driven the price of crude oil over the $115/bbl benchmark.
[Editor’s note: we had to increase that price four times while writing this piece!]
Thankfully, Alberta has a large supply of energy resources, resources that could displace the loss of Russian imports and help keep energy affordable for Canadians.
Of course, it would have been better if our calls had been listened to years ago, and we had the infrastructure in place already!
But, as the saying goes:
The best time to build a pipeline was 20 years ago.
The second-best time is now!
If our politicians had any sense, Keystone XL and Energy East would have been given emergency approval the moment war broke out.
Yet, here we are, a week into a European war, and there’s been nary a whisper from the White House or Rideau Cottage.
If Alberta can’t convince Canada to build a pipeline in the middle of a war in Europe, we’ll surely never get one.
To make matters worse, the pipeline issues aren’t even the only possible problem on the horizon.
In past years, $100+ oil was good for Alberta.
Economic growth explodes, jobs are plentiful, and the pay is phenomenal.
Some of that will surely happen in the coming months, but with this current boom coinciding with major inflationary pressures, there are risks for Alberta too.
High energy prices and the ensuing increase in the cost of living will hurt the rest of the country.
The Rest of Canada will complain that Alberta has it so good, while they struggle to pay their hydro bills.
Will the Rest of Canada decide to start extracting their own plentiful natural resources, currently kept in the ground for nonsensical environmental concerns?
Of course not.
Ottawa will, undoubtedly, devise yet another means of wealth redistribution instead.
Once again, they’ll figure out a way to make Alberta pay for their poor policy choices.
They probably won’t have the gall to call it a “National Energy Program”.
But they might.
Remember, the major issues driving Western alienation are structural deficiencies in Confederation, deficiencies that have only gotten worse in recent decades, not better.
The West is underrepresented in Parliament, the Senate is unelected and ineffective at protecting Provincial rights, the very concept of fairness is undermined in our Constitution via equalization, and the Supreme Court screws the West and protects the rest.
At Project Confederation, our mission is clear:
To build a movement that will reform Confederation and achieve a fairer deal, in whatever legal configuration that may require.
I suspect we’re going to have a lot of work to do in the coming months!
If you’d like to help us with that work, please reach out to us to get involved, or consider making a donation to help fund our efforts.
Regards,
Josh Andrus
Executive Director
Project Confederation
Business
Premiers fight to lower gas taxes as Trudeau hikes pump costs
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.
Business
Bank of Canada admits ‘significant’ number of citizens would resist digital dollar
From LifeSiteNews
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.”
Those most enthusiastic about a government-backed version of Bitcoin were teenagers and young adults. Those older remained especially skeptical.
“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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