Opinion
PBO Report Reveals Trudeau’s Carbon Tax Crushes Middle-Class Canadians

PBO Report Exposes Trudeau’s Carbon Tax as a Middle-Class Burden, With Net Economic Losses, Crushed Job Prospects, and Hollow Rebates
In a bombshell report dated October 10, 2024, the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) exposes the cold reality of Trudeau’s carbon tax policy: it’s making life harder for middle-class Canadians. While the Prime Minister continues to tout the virtues of his climate plan, the PBO’s findings show that far from protecting the environment, the federal fuel charge is crippling Canadian families—especially those in the middle income brackets.
Let’s be clear: Trudeau’s carbon tax isn’t just a simple “polluter pays” system. According to the PBO’s distributional analysis of the federal fuel charge, average Canadian households will face substantial net economic costs by 2030, despite government-issued rebates. Trudeau loves to parade the fact that Canadians get rebates through the Canada Carbon Rebate (CCR), but the numbers tell a different story when you dig into the real economic impact.
The Middle-Class Burden
For middle-class Canadians, the so-called “climate action” of the Trudeau government comes with serious consequences. By 2030-31, the carbon price will hit $170 per tonne, with devastating effects on household incomes. Even though rebates are supposed to offset the pain, the PBO’s analysis shows that once you factor in the economic fallout—job losses, reduced wages, and weaker investments—middle-class families end up worse off.
For example, in Ontario, a province Trudeau regularly visits to promote his policies, middle-income households will face steep costs. According to the PBO, households in the third quintile (middle income) will see $588 in net costs—and that’s just after factoring in rebates. When you look at the combined hit from job losses and reduced income, the overall financial burden for middle-class families grows even larger.
In Saskatchewan, things are even more dire. The average household in the third income quintile will suffer from a $1,205 net loss by 2030-31. For working families who depend on stable employment in energy, agriculture, and manufacturing, this tax punishes them more than it rewards them.
Trudeau’s Rebate Shell Game
Trudeau’s government spins the carbon rebate as some kind of economic miracle, suggesting families get back more than they pay. But as the PBO’s report shows, this claim is little more than political smoke and mirrors. The rebates might look good on paper for the lowest-income Canadians, but for everyone else—especially middle-income earners—it’s a losing game.
Even with rebates factored in, the economic damage of Trudeau’s carbon tax results in net losses for most families. By 2030, the federal fuel charge will contribute to an overall reduction of 0.6% in real GDP across the backstop provinces, which excludes Quebec and British Columbia. Middle-class families are stuck dealing with reduced employment opportunities, lower investment incomes, and weaker wage growth—all while Trudeau’s elite friends and the liberal establishment pat themselves on the back for “going green”.
Crushing Investments and Jobs
What Trudeau doesn’t want you to know is that this tax doesn’t just hurt family finances. It’s killing jobs. The PBO report shows that by 2030, the carbon tax will reduce capital income—that’s the money people earn from investments—by as much as 2.4% in provinces like Alberta. Worse, it will slash labor income—the wages people depend on—by over 1.4% in places like Saskatchewan. That’s devastating for middle-income earners whose livelihoods depend on industries targeted by the Liberals’ climate agenda.
While low-income Canadians might see minimal gains from Trudeau’s rebates, middle-class families face the harsh reality of stagnant wages, diminished savings, and a lack of economic opportunity. Trudeau’s tax isn’t just a burden on polluters, it’s a punishment for working Canadians trying to get by.
A Failed Experiment – Just Look at British Columbia
If you want to see where Trudeau’s carbon tax will lead, just look at British Columbia. They’ve had a carbon tax since 2008, and it hasn’t stopped a single wildfire, flood, or heat dome. Did that carbon tax prevent the devastating atmospheric river? Not a chance. This so-called climate solution has done nothing to shield British Columbians from environmental disasters.
Even worse, while the federal government has been collecting billions in carbon tax revenue, they’ve neglected to address the fuel buildup in forests around places like Jasper. For years, experts have warned about the dangers, and yet not a dime of that tax money was spent on controlled burns or preventive measures. The result? Our beautiful Jasper National Park was left to burn. Trudeau and his government couldn’t save our park, they couldn’t save our forests, and they certainly couldn’t save Jasper.
A Sacrifice for Nothing
My fellow Canadians, governments have been trying to control the weather since the dawn of time. Ancient civilizations sacrificed animals to the gods, hoping for good weather. Today, the sacrifice is your money. Yesterday, it was a goat to Zeus; today, it’s a carbon tax to Trudeau. In the end, it’s just another way for the government to take from you, promising it will fix things it simply cannot control.
But here’s the truth: this tax won’t change the climate, won’t stop the floods, and certainly won’t bring back our forests. The only thing it’s doing is draining your household to feed a bloated government. The PBO report is clear: Trudeau’s carbon tax is hurting middle-class families while delivering nothing in return.
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Business
Will Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ Tariffs End In Disaster Or Prosperity?

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By J.D. Foster
“Liberation Day” has come. So what does it mean? Beats the hell out of me.
What we know is that President Trump’s avalanche of tariffs was to hit a peak on April 2; not end, mind you; not necessarily “the” peak, as more could be on the way; but a peak.
No Trump policy more completely breaks with America’s past than his “beautiful” tariffs on just about everything coming into the United States from just about anywhere.
Will this new policy liberate American manufacturing from foreign shackles? Will it usher in a new era of prosperity, keeping in mind the United States had for many years the consistently best-performing economy in the industrialized world, even overcoming the many inane obstacles erected by the Biden-Harris Administration?
Or will it leave the United States isolated, friendless, and weakened?
The correct answer at this point is no one knows, not even the bloviating talking heads on TV confidently predicting demise or Shangri-la.
Think of it this way. Suppose you’re a restaurant chef and a woman hands you a new recipe. Her father turns 75 soon and they want to have a party at the restaurant. The recipe is for the father’s favorite dish, one her mother made for years.
The recipe looks old, with odd ingredients and processes you’ve not seen before. Now judge it as a chef.
You can’t. Even as you start chopping and dicing, mixing ingredients as instructed, you’re not too sure how this is going to turn out. You have to wait until the dish is on the plate and taste it.
That’s the case with Trump’s tariffs. How will this all turn out? It’s too soon to tell.
The stock market sure doesn’t like it, but why should it? The investor class doesn’t understand this any better than you do. What they do understand is this new policy has upended assumptions and created enormous new uncertainties. We know that dish as those ingredients are always good for a big pullback.
Much of the confusion arises because we don’t know the underlying policy and likely this uncertainty is intentional. Trump likes keeping his counterparts, in this case our trading partners, guessing. If it means Americans are confused for a bit, Trump’s cool with that. Breaking eggs to make an omelette. It will pass and America will be great again afterward. Bon appetite.
If the core policy is to erect massive and mostly permanent tariff walls behind which American firms can hide, then we know how this will turn out: America, meet the dustbin of history.
If the core policy is to force our trading partners to deal with America fairly by reducing their trade barriers after which Trump will remove his tariffs, then this could turn out very well. Tariffs (and non-tariff barriers) in the U.S. and those of our trading partners would fall, reinvigorating the free trade that has energized prosperity for decades.
Which is it? Walls and doom or freedom and prosperity? Again, too early to tell.
Whatever else Trump does in his second term, these tariffs will define his presidency, akin in consequence to Ronald Reagan’s pro-growth tax cuts and Joe Biden’s inflation.
Trump in his second term clearly lives by the saying, “go bold or go home.” He’s got “bold” down pat. We will see over the next year or so whether he and the Republicans go home. Has he liberated Democrats from any fear of Republicans in the mid-terms or in 2028, or he’s liberated America from any fear of Democratic socialism and wokism returning in our lifetimes. The chips are all-in. Soon we will see the cards. Uncertainty, indeed.
JD Foster is the former chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget and former chief economist and senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He now resides in relative freedom in the hills of Idaho.
International
FREE MARINE LE PEN!’: Trump defends French populist against ‘lawfare’ charges

From LifeSiteNews
‘The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent,’ Donald Trump on Truth Social.
U.S. President Donald Trump defended French populist Marine Le Pen as a fellow victim of “lawfare” after the popular opposition leader was barred from the 2027 French national election due to embezzlement charges.
“The Witch Hunt against Marine Le Pen is another example of European Leftists using Lawfare to silence Free Speech, and censor their Political Opponent, this time going so far as to put that Opponent in prison,” Trump wrote Thursday night on Truth Social.
As of Sunday, Le Pen, head of the National Rally (RN) party, was leading polls to win the presidential election, being 11 to 17 points ahead of the party of the globalist President Emmanuel Macron.
On Monday, Le Pen was hit with a five-year ban on running for elected office and sentenced to four years of prison on charges of “misuse of EU funds,” although two years were suspended and the remaining two would be served through house arrest.
Le Pen and her co-defendants were specifically accused of illegally using European Parliament funds for party employees who “seldom (or never) dealt with affairs in Brussels or Strasbourg,” of which the court held Le Pen personally responsible for €474,000.
Her prison sentence has been paused as her lawyer appeals the ruling, but the ban on her running for office nevertheless remains in force, despite the fact that legal penalties are typically delayed during the appeals process, according to Politico.
In his Truth Social post, Trump accused French leftists of using a “minor charge” against Le Pen as a pretext to block her from office.
“Just before what would be a Big Victory, they get her on a minor charge that she probably knew nothing about – Sounds like a ‘bookkeeping’ error to me,” wrote Trump.
“It is all so bad for France, and the Great French People, no matter what side they are on. FREE MARINE LE PEN!” he concluded.
Conservatives across Europe have rallied to Le Pen’s defense following Monday’s ruling, similarly slamming the decision as a pretext to exclude her from politics.
“I am Marine!” wrote Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on X Monday, in a cry of solidarity with his fellow anti-globalist.
“This is nuts,” remarked former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on X. “Lawfare is wrong whomever it targets. And it is stupid to boot. France’s neofascists will only benefit from this, just as the MAGA lot did. A panicking illiberal establishment across the West is diving headlong into a totalitarian pit.”
“I am shocked by the incredible tough verdict against Marine Le Pen,” chimed in Geert Wilders, leader of a Dutch populist party that won a national election in 2023. “I support and believe in her for the full 100% and I trust she will win the appeal and become President of France.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has called the ruling a “violation of democratic norms,” and Reform UK party leader Nigel Farage denounced Le Pen’s “cancellation” as based on “a very trumped-up charge.”
“In this country we have nine county council elections on 1 May that won’t happen, and may not happen for years,” said Farage, according to the BBC. “And in France, they cancelled a candidate. A candidate that would, without doubt, have won the next French presidential election. And you know what, if looks to me like a very trumped-up charge.”
“They will not succeed in silencing the voice of the French people,” said Santiago Abascal, head of the pro-family, right-wing Vox party in Spain.
Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini urged Le Pen to keep fighting, calling her verdict a “bad film” akin to political shut-outs occuring in other countries like Romania.
“We will not be intimidated, we will not stop: full speed ahead my friend,” said Salvini.
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