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Ottawa’s cap-and-trade plan long on costs, light on environmental benefits

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From the Fraser Institute

By Kenneth P. Green

” the Trudeau government’s new plan would reduce an already unmeasurable climate benefit to one even less measurable “

On Thursday, the Trudeau government unveiled its plan to cap greenhouse gas emissions from Canada’s oil and gas sector. The plan calls for a “cap-and-trade” system rather than a mandatory hard cap on emissions.

A previous plan would have required the oil and gas sector to reduce emissions by 42 per cent (from 2019 levels) by 2030. The new plan calls for a 35 per cent to 38 per cent cut (again, compared to 2019 levels by 2030). So the government has somewhat softened the target. However, the slight change is unlikely to improve the cost/benefit analysis for the sector or affected provinces.

As noted in a study published earlier this year, the Trudeau government’s previous plan would have resulted in at least $45 billion in revenue losses for the oil and gas sector in 2030 alone, which would imply a significant drop resource royalties and tax revenue for governments. And costs would ripple farther out from the oil and gas sector, into the plastics and petrochemical sectors, imposing more costs and threatening the employment of many Canadian workers in those sectors.

Crucially, according to the study, this economic gain would come with little or no environmental benefit. While the reductions would be large when only considering Canada’s oil and gas sector, the impact on climate change, which is a matter of global GHG concentrations, would be virtually nonexistent. The government’s previous plan called for Canada to reduce GHG emissions by 187 megatonnes in 2030, which would equate to four-tenths of one per cent of global emissions and likely have no impact on the trajectory of the climate in any detectable manner and hence offer equally undetectable environmental, health and safety benefits. In other words, the Trudeau government’s new plan would reduce an already unmeasurable climate benefit to one even less measurable.

And now, there are serious questions if the new plan will deliver even the miniscule climate benefit mentioned above. Under a cap-and-trade scheme, companies can trade in emission offsets if they’re unable to reduce emissions via their own technological processes, and to avoid cutting oil and gas production. But emission offset schemes are deeply dodgy.

As noted in a Guardian investigation of Verra, the world’s leading offset market—basically, organizations that reduce carbon in the atmosphere by tree-planting and other initiatives—more than 90 per cent of Verra’s rainforest offset credits (among the most commonly used by companies) are likely “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions. And as reported in the ultra-green Grist, rainforest credits are not the only bogus game in town. “In reality… the market for these offsets is ‘riddled with fraud,’ with offset projects too often failing to deliver their promised emission reductions.”

Canada’s domestic carbon offset market may be more robust than in other countries, but there’s no guarantee. If a significant share of Canada’s offsets prove to be as bogus as the international norm, GHG reductions from the oil and gas sector might be smaller still.

The Trudeau government’s new GHG cap on the oil and gas sector is a moderate improvement over the previous plan. The cap is a bit less stringent, and therefore might be easier to attain. And the use of cap-and-trade rather than a hard cap will give the oil and gas industry more flexibility, and more importantly, allow it to avoid curtailing production to satisfy the cap. But the plan still fails a critical cost/benefit analysis. It remains quite high in potential costs for Canada’s oil and gas sector, particularly in provinces which produce the most oil and gas, yet will deliver environmental benefits that are too small to measure.

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2025 Federal Election

Columnist warns Carney Liberals will consider a home equity tax on primary residences

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From LifeSiteNews

By Steve Jalsevac

The Liberals paid a group called Generation Squeeze, led by activist Paul Kershaw, to study how the government could tap into Canadians’ home equity — including their primary residences.

Winnipeg Sun Columnist Kevin Klein is sounding the alarm there is substantial evidence the Carney Liberal Party is considering implementing a home equity tax on Canadians’ primary residences as a potential huge source of funds to bring down the massive national debt their spending created.

Klein wrote in his April 23 column and stated in his accompanying video presentation:

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) — a federal Crown corporation — has investigated the possibility of a home equity tax on more than one occasion, using taxpayer dollars to fund that research. This was not backroom speculation. It was real, documented work.

The Liberals paid a group called Generation Squeeze, led by activist Paul Kershaw, to study how the government could tap into Canadians’ home equity — including their primary residences.

Kershaw, by the way, believes homeowners are “lottery winners” who didn’t earn their wealth but lucked into it. That’s the ideology being advanced to the highest levels of government.

It didn’t stop there. These proposals were presented directly to federal cabinet ministers. That’s on record, and most of those same ministers are now part of Mark Carney’s team as he positions himself as the Liberals’ next leader.

Watch below Klein’s 7-minute, impassionate warning to Canadians about this looming major new tax should the Liberals win Monday’s election.

Klein further adds:

The total home equity held by Canadians is over $4.7 trillion. It’s the largest pool of private wealth in the country. For millions of Canadians — especially baby boomers — it’s the only retirement fund they have. They don’t have big pensions. They have a paid-off house and a hope that it will carry them through their later years. Yet, that’s what Ottawa has quietly been circling.

The Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation has researched this issue and published a report on the alarming amount of new taxation a homeowner equity tax could cost Canadians who sell their homes that have increased in value over the years they have lived in it. It is a shocker!

A Google search on the question, “what is a home equity tax?” returns the response:

A home equity tax, simply put, it’s a proposed levy on the increased value of your home, specifically, on your principal residence. The idea is for Government to raise money by taxing wealth accumulation from rising property values.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has provided a Home Equity Tax Calculator Backgrounder to help Canadians understand what the impact of three different types of Home Equity Tax Calculators would have on home owners. The required tax payment resulting from all three is a shocker.

Keep in mind that World Economic Forum policies intend to eventually eliminate all private home ownership and have the state own and control not only all residences, but also eliminate car ownership, and control when and where you may live and travel.

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Steve is the co-founder and managing director of LifeSiteNews.com.
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2025 Federal Election

Carney’s Hidden Climate Finance Agenda

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From Energy Now

By Tammy Nemeth and Ron Wallace

It is high time that Canadians discuss and understand Mark Carney’s avowed plan to re-align capital with global Net Zero goals.

Mark Carney’s economic vision for Canada, one that spans energy, housing and defence, rests on an unspoken, largely undisclosed, linchpin: Climate Finance – one that promises a Net Zero future for Canada but which masks a radical economic overhaul.

Regrettably, Carney’s potential approach to a Net Zero future remains largely unexamined in this election. As the former chair of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), Carney has proposed new policiesofficesagencies,  and bureaus required to achieve these goals.. Pieced together from his presentations, discussions, testimonies and book, Carney’s approach to climate finance appears to have four pillars: mandatory climate disclosures, mandatory transition plans, centralized data sharing via the United Nations’ Net Zero Data Public Utility (NZDPU) and compliance with voluntary carbon markets (VCMs). There are serious issues for Canada’s economy if these principles were to form the core values for policies under a potential Liberal government.

About the first pillar Carney has been unequivocal: “Achieving net zero requires a whole economy transition.”  This would require a restructuring energy and financial systems to shift away from fossil fuels to renewable energy with Carney insisting repeatedly in his book that “every financial [and business] decision takes climate change into account.” Climate finance, unlike broader sustainable finance with its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) focus would channel capital into sectors aligned with a 2050 Net Zero trajectory. Carney states: “Companies, and those who invest in them…who are part of the solution, will be rewarded. Those lagging behind…will be punished.”  In other words, capital would flow to compliant firms but be withheld from so-called “high emitters”.

How will investors, banks and insurers distinguish solution from problem? Mandatory climate disclosures, aligned with the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB), would compel firms to report emissions and outline their Net Zero strategies. Canada’s Sustainability Standards Board has adopted these methodologies, despite concerns they would disadvantage Canadian businesses. Here, Carney repeatedly emphasizes disclosures as the cornerstone to track emissions data required to shift capital away from “high emitters”. Without this, he claims, large institutional investors lack the data on supply chains to make informed decisions to shift capital to businesses that are Net Zero compliant.

The second pillar, Mandatory Transition Plans would require companies to map a 2050 Net Zero trajectory for emission reduction targets. Failure to meet those targets would invite pressure from investors, banks, or activists, who may pursue litigation for non-compliance. The UK’s Transition Plan Task Force, now part of ISSB, provides this standardized framework. Carney, while at GFANZ, advocated using transition plans for a “managed phase-out” of high-emitting assets like coal, oil and gas, not just through divestment but by financing emissions reductions. “As part of their transition planning, [GFANZ] members should establish and apply financing policies to phase out and align carbon-intensive sectors and activities, such as thermal coal, oil and gas and deforestation, not only through asset divestment but also through transition finance that reduces real world emissions. To assist with these efforts GFANZ will continue to develop and implement a framework for the Managed Phase-out of high-emitting assets.” Clearly, the purpose of this is to ensure companies either decarbonize or face capital withdrawal.

The third pillar is the United Nations’ Net Zero Data Public Utility (NZDPU), a centralized platform for emissions and transition data. Carney insists these data be freely accessible, enabling investors, banks and insurers to judge companies’ progress to Net Zero. As Carney noted in 2021: “Private finance is judging…banks, pension funds and asset managers have to show where they are in the transition to Net Zero.” Hence, compliant firms would receive investment; laggards would face divestment.

Finally, voluntary carbon markets (VCMs) allow companies to offset emissions by purchasing credits from projects like reforestation. Carney, who launched the Taskforce on Scaling VCMs in 2020, has insisted on monitoring, verification and lifecycle tracking.  At a 2024 Beijing conference, he suggested major jurisdictions could establish VCMs by COP 30 (planned for 2025 in Brazil) to create a global market. If Canada mandates VCMs, businesses especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs) would face much higher compliance costs with credits available only to those that demonstrate progress with transition plans.

These potential mandatory disclosures and transition plans would burden Canadian businesses with material costs and legal risks that constitute an economic gamble which few may recognize but all should weigh. Do Canadians truly want a government that has an undisclosed climate finance agenda that would be subservient to an opaque globalized Net Zero agenda?


Tammy Nemeth is a U.K.-based strategic energy analyst. Ron Wallace is an executive fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and the Canada West Foundation.

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