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National

Canadians pay dearly in gas taxes – it’s only going to get worse

Published

7 months ago

5 minute read

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Author: Jay Goldberg

Two thousand dollars. That’s how much the typical two-car family spends on gas taxes every year.

Big numbers can sometimes be hard to process. But the feeling of dread Canadians get as the gas metre ticks up sure isn’t.

Go to the gas station and you’ll see moms filling up the minivan before soccer practice, praying the metre doesn’t tick past $100 so she can afford to take the kids to McDonald’s after an hour of drills.

Or dads fueling up after a week of long commutes to the office, who might choose to only fill the tank halfway in order to have enough money left over to pick up groceries on the way home for Friday night dinner.

All too often, folks will throw up their hands when they see the gas bill, not knowing who to blame. But the truth is a lot of the fault for high gas prices lies at the feet of our politicians.

The average price of gas in Ontario late last month was $1.66 per litre. Out of that total per litre cost, a whopping 56 cents was taxes.

That means that more than a third of the price of gas is taxes, money going out of the pockets of hardworking families and into the coffers of big government.

A family filling up a Dodge Caravan and Honda Accord once every two weeks ends up paying just shy of two grand in gas taxes over the course of a year.

That’s the equivalent of two months’ worth of groceries for a family of four.

Yes, gas taxes have been around for decades. But politicians today, particularly those in Ottawa, keep driving the tax burden higher and higher.

The Trudeau government’s carbon tax now costs 17.6 cents per litre. For that family filling up the Caravan and Accord once every two weeks, over the course of a year, the carbon tax bill alone will reach $604.

And it’s a cost that wasn’t charged at the pump just six short years ago.

If a 56 cent per litre tax bill sounds bad to you now, just wait until you see what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has in store for Canadians.

Trudeau plans to keep raising his carbon tax each and every year until 2030.

Today, the carbon tax costs 17.6 cents per litre of gas at the pumps. In six years, with Trudeau’s two carbon taxes fully implemented (the second one coming through fuel regulations), that number will be 54.4 cents per litre.

And that will bring the total per litre tax bill to $1.04.

By 2030, that same family filling up the Caravan and Accord every other week will be paying over $1,800 in carbon taxes. And the cost of overall gas taxes per year will hit $3,570.

This is a future Canadians can’t afford. And the federal carbon tax is making that future unaffordable.

The Trudeau government has tried to argue that somehow, by charging a carbon tax, paying bureaucrats to collect the carbon tax, charging sales tax on top of that carbon tax, and then using a magic formula to send some of that money back to taxpayers, Canadians will be better off.

Anyone who buys that should be looking for a beachfront property in Saskatoon.

And there are no refunds for Trudeau’s second carbon tax.

For those wondering, there are politicians out there willing to cut fuel taxes to make life more affordable at the pumps.

Provincial governments of all stripes, from the Liberals in Newfoundland and Labrador to the Progressive Conservatives here in Ontario to the NDP in Manitoba, have cut fuel taxes, saving families hundreds of dollars.

Trudeau’s scheduled carbon tax hikes over the next six years will crush family budgets like an asteroid wiping out the dinosaurs. It’s time for the feds to learn from the provinces and lower costs at the pumps.

That means putting scrapping the carbon tax at the top of the agenda.

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Indigenous

Trudeau gov’t to halt funds for ‘unmarked graves’ search after millions spent, no bodies found

Published on February 21, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

According to the committee tasked with searching for ‘unmarked burials’ at residential schools, the Government of Canada has denied its request for further funding.

The Canadian federal government will be halting funding to a committee tasked with searching for “unmarked burials” near former residential schools after zero graves were discovered and millions of taxpayer dollars spent.

In a statement released last week, the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials said it was “extremely disappointed to learn that the Government of Canada has decided to discontinue funding to support their work to help Indigenous communities in their efforts to identify, locate and commemorate missing children.” 

NAC urged “the federal government to reconsider” its funding cuts to the committee, which is co-administered by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and the federal Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, that was struck in 2021. 

The reality of the situation is that since the NAC was struck not one body has been located on lands associated with former government-funded and mandated residential schools, many of which were run by Catholic and Anglican churches in Canada.  

In fact, Canada’s Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations had already confirmed it spent millions searching for “unmarked graves” at a now-closed residential school, but that the search has turned up no human remains. 

The initial funds budgeted in 2022 to aid in “locating burial sites linked to former Residential Schools” were already set to expire in 2025, with some $216.5 million having been spent.  

A total of $7.9 million granted for fieldwork has resulted in no human remains having been found to date.  

In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some of the schools.  

As a result of the claims, since the spring of 2021, 112 churches, most of them Catholic, many of them on indigenous lands that serve the local population, have been burned to the ground, vandalized, or defiled in Canada. 

The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation was more or less the reason there was a large international outcry in 2021 when it claimed it had found 215 “unmarked graves” of kids at the Kamloops Residential School. The claims of remains, however, were not backed by physical evidence but were rather disturbances in the soil picked up by ground-penetrating radar.   

The First Nation now has changed its claim of 215 graves to 200 “potential burials.”   

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau as recently as June again falsely stated that “unmarked graves” were discovered at former residential schools.  

Canadian indigenous residential schools, while run by both the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, were mandated and set up by the federal government and ran from the late 19th century until the last school closed in 1996.     

While there were indeed some Catholics who committed serious abuses against native children, the unproved “mass graves” narrative has led to widespread anti-Catholic sentiment since 2021.  

While some children did die at the once-mandatory boarding schools, evidence has revealed that many of the children tragically passed away because of unsanitary conditions due to the federal government, not the Catholic Church, failing to properly fund the system.     

In October of 2024, retired Manitoba judge Brian Giesbrecht said Canadians are being “deliberately deceived by their own government” after blasting the Trudeau government for “actively pursuing” a policy that blames the Catholic Church for the unfounded “deaths and secret burials” of Indigenous children. 

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Addictions

BC overhauls safer supply program in response to widespread pharmacy scam

Published on February 21, 2025

By

By Alexandra Keeler

A B.C. pharmacy scam investigation has led the provincial government to return to a witnessed consumption model for safer supply

More than 60 pharmacies across B.C. are alleged to have participated in a kickback scheme linked to safer supply drugs, according to a provincial report released Feb. 19.

On Feb. 5, the BC Conservatives leaked a report that showed the findings of an internal investigation by the B.C. Ministry of Health. That investigation showed dozens of pharmacies were filling prescriptions patients did not require in order to overbill the government. These safer supply drugs were then diverted onto the black market.

After the report was leaked, the province committed to ending take-home safer supply models, which allow users to take hydromorphone pills home in bottles. Instead, it will require drug users to consume prescribed opioids in a witnessed program, under the oversight of a medical professional.

Gregory Sword, whose 14-year-old daughter Kamilah died in August 2022 after taking a hydromorphone pill that had been diverted from B.C.’s safer supply program, expressed outrage over the report’s findings.

“This is so frustrating to hear that [pharmacies] were making money off this program and causing more drugs [to flood] the street,” Sword told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20.

The investigation found that pharmacies exploited B.C.’s Frequency of Dispensing policy to maximize billings. To take advantage of dispensing fees, pharmacies incentivized clients to fill prescriptions they did not require by offering them cash or rewards. Some of those clients then sold the drugs on the black market. Pharmacies earned up to $11,000 per patient a year.

“I’m positive that [the B.C. government has] known this for a long time and only made this decision when the public became aware and the scrutiny was high,” said Elenore Sturko, Conservative MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, who released the leaked report in a statement on Feb. 5.

“As much as I am really disappointed in how long it’s taken for this decision to be made, I am also happy that this has happened,” she said.

The health ministry said it is investigating the implicated pharmacies. Those that are confirmed to have been involved could have their licenses suspended, be referred to law enforcement or become ineligible to participate in PharmaCare, the provincial program that helps residents cover the costs of prescription drugs.

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Witnessed dosing

The leaked report says that “a significant portion of the opioids being freely prescribed by doctors and pharmacists are not being consumed by their intended recipients.” It also says “prescribed alternatives are trafficked provincially, nationally and internationally.”

Critics of the safer supply program say it enables addiction, while supporters say it reduces overdoses.

Sword, Kamilah’s father, is suing the provincial and federal governments, arguing B.C.’s safer supply program made it possible for youth such as his daughter to access drugs.

Madison, Kamilah’s best friend, also became addicted to opioids dispensed through safer supply programs. Madison was just 15 when she first encountered “dillies” — hydromorphone pills dispensed through safer supply, but widely available on the streets. She developed a tolerance that led her to fentanyl.

“I do know for sure that some pharmacies and doctors were aware of the diversion,” Madison’s mother Beth told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20.

“When I first realized what my daughter was taking and how she was getting it, I phoned the pharmacy and the doctor on the label of the pill bottle to inform them that the patient was selling their hydromorphone,” Beth said.

Masha Krupp, an Ottawa mother who has a son enrolled in a safer supply program, has said the safer supply program in her city is similarly flawed. Canadian Affairs previously reported on this program, which is run by Recovery Care’s Ottawa-based harm reduction clinics.

“I read about the B.C. pharmacy scheme and wasn’t surprised,” Krupp told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20. Krupp lost a daughter to methadone toxicity while she was in an addiction treatment program at Recovery Care.

“Three years [after starting safer supply], my son is still using fentanyl, crack cocaine and methadone, despite being with Dr. [Charles] Breau and with Recovery Care for over three years,” Krupp testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health on Oct. 22, 2024.

Krupp has been vocal about the dangers of dispensing large quantities of opioids without proper oversight, arguing many patients sell their prescriptions to buy stronger street drugs.

“You can’t give addicts 28 pills and say, ‘Oh here you go,’” she said in her testimony. “They sell for three dollars a pop on the street.”

Krupp has also advocated for witnessed consumption of safer supply medications, arguing supervised dosing would prevent diversion and ensure proper oversight of pharmacies.

“I had talked about witnessed dosing for safe supply when I appeared before the parliamentary health committee last October,” she told Canadian Affairs this week.

“I’m grateful that finally … this decision has been made to return to a witness program,” said Sturko, the B.C. MLA.

In 2020, B.C. implemented a witnessed consumption model to ensure safer supply opioids were consumed as prescribed and to reduce diversion. In 2021, the province switched to take-home models. Its stated aim was to expand access, save lives and ease pressure on health-care facilities during the pandemic.

“You’re really fighting against a group of people … working within the bureaucracy of [the B.C. NDP] government … who have been making efforts to work towards the legalization of drugs and, in doing that, have looked only for opportunities to bolster their arguments for their position, instead of examining their approach in a balanced way,” said Sturko.

“These are foreseeable outcomes when you do not put proper safeguards in place and when you completely ignore all indications of negative impacts.”

Sword also believes some drug policies fail to prioritize the safety of vulnerable individuals.

“Greed is the ultimate evil in society and this just proves it,” he said. “We don’t care about these drugs getting into the wrong hands as long as I get my money.”

This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.

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