Opinion
Trudeau’s home heating oil exemption shows politics trumps real affordability
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Author: Jay Goldberg
It turns out desperate pigs really do fly.
In a colossal policy reversal, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a suspension of the carbon tax on home heating oil for the next three years. But that one concession favours one region over others and is far from enough to protect Canadians from the brutal realities of the carbon tax’s impact on family budgets.
Trudeau’s carbon tax concession was specifically targeted at Atlantic Canada because it deals with home heating oil. Forty per cent of Atlantic Canadian households use heating oil to heat their homes. Compare that to just two per cent of Ontario households.
Atlantic Canada had a special deal with Trudeau until this summer. The federal government gave Atlantic provinces permission to exempt home heating oil from their carbon taxes.
But the region’s special deal ran out in July, with full federal carbon tax pricing kicking in on Canada Day, including on heating oil.
With winter fast approaching, taxpayers in Atlantic Canada recognized the massive tax hike they were about to face just to stay warm.
Last winter, Atlantic Canadian households paid no carbon tax on their home heating oil bill. This winter, the average household was poised to spend $272.
Public opinion polls of late show Atlantic Canadians are preparing to vote with their chequebooks. The anti-carbon tax Conservatives are gaining steam.
The Conservatives forced a vote in the House of Commons on repealing the carbon tax earlier this month. One Liberal MP from Newfoundland and Labrador had the courage to stand up for his constituents and vote to repeal the tax.
Avalon MP Ken McDonald was crystal clear in articulating why he voted the way he did.
“I’ve had people tell me they can’t afford groceries,” McDonald said. “They can’t afford to heat their homes. You can’t make it more expensive on people than what they can handle. And that’s exactly what’s happening right now.”
McDonald spoke a truth Trudeau has consistently refused to hear, or at least acknowledge. The federal carbon tax is making life less affordable for Canadians.
A report from the non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer shows this plain as day. This year, the average Canadian family will lose between $347 and $710 due to the carbon tax, even after the rebates.
After McDonald voted to repeal the carbon tax, other Liberal MPs from Atlantic Canada voiced their concerns in public.
In the wake of all of this, Trudeau caved. He announced a three year suspension of the carbon tax on home heating oil. Conveniently, that suspension ends just after the next federal election.
Most Ontario households use natural gas to heat their homes. It’s cleaner than home heating oil, but Trudeau is keeping the carbon tax on natural gas in place.
That’s proof that this is all about politics.
The average Ontario household using natural gas will be paying a $326 carbon tax bill this winter. Those folks won’t get an exemption under Trudeau’s new plan.
If Liberal MPs in Ontario take a courageous stand like McDonald did in Newfoundland, families here wouldn’t get punished with a carbon tax for heating their homes.
What shouldn’t be lost in any of this is that carbon tax misery will still be felt coast to coast, even though many in Atlantic Canada are getting special treatment.
Families in every province will still pay carbon taxes at the pumps when filling up to drive the kids to school. And food will still be more expensive because truckers who ship the food and farmers who produce the food will still be paying carbon taxes on fuel.
It’s time for Trudeau to stop driving up the cost of living and dividing Canadians based on political calculations. The feds need to axe the carbon tax on everything everywhere, no matter the postal code.
From the X account of Andrew Scheer
Mark Carney spent his entire life promoting the carbon tax.
Now he’s trying to scam Canadians out of billions and to do it he’s put a whole crew together.
It could be the biggest con job in Canadian history. Only YOU can stop it! pic.twitter.com/1DyywsynBN
— Andrew Scheer (@AndrewScheer) February 22, 2025
From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Newt Gingrich
In an amazing show of courage, Vice President J.D. Vance offered an intervention for some of our European allies.
That is the best way to think of the two historic speeches he made in France and Germany last week.
In Paris, Vice President Vance pledged the United States would do whatever it takes to lead the world in the development of Artificial Intelligence. He went on to assert that Europe’s automatic response to regulate technological change rather than adapt to it was doomed to fail.
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Vance warned the Europeans that the Trump administration would retaliate to protect American high-tech companies from being fined and regulated by the European community.
Then, Vance went to the Munich Security Conference. It is the annual meeting of European leaders concerned about defense and threats to peace. The Vice President shocked the Europeans by launching a frontal assault on the decay of their political system.
As Vance put it:
“But while the Trump administration is very concerned with European security and believes that we can come to a reasonable settlement between Russia and Ukraine, and we also believe that it’s important in the coming years for Europe to step up in a big way to provide for its own defense, the threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia, it’s not China, it’s not any other external actor. And what I worry about is the threat from within, the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values — values shared with the United States of America.”
He then went through a litany of specific complaints about the behavior of different European countries. They ranged from failing to control immigration, suppressing free speech, and Brussels seeking to control and define futures of independent countries such as Hungary and Romania.
The leading French newspaper, Le Monde (their equivalent of the New York Times) asserted that the American Vice President was declaring “ideological war on Europe.”
Le Monde was right. The European elites have been decaying for at least two generations. They hide behind their privileged status and take ideological positions that feel good but are destructive. Europe’s failures are devastating for most everyday Europeans.
I have personal knowledge about this. I have a Ph.D. in Modern European History – and I have lived in France, Germany, Belgium and Italy. As a young Army dependent, we were living in France when the French Army came back from Algeria, killed the French Fourth Republic and brought back General Charles de Gaulle to establish the Fifth Republic.
It is now the longest serving non-royal government in French history.
The European elites value each other’s opinions more than they value serving the people of Europe. The European elites live in a fantasy world of green policies that destroy industries and jobs, welfare policies which destroy the work ethic, and immigration policies which undermine the popular culture. They simply hope for a peaceful world without a strong military.
Meanwhile, state enforced speech codes protect Islamic extremists at the expense of local citizens.
The result has been a steady decline of European culture, economic development, and defensive capacity.
The Afghan Islamist who wounded more than two dozen people and killed a mother and her two-year-old daughter with a car two days before the supposed security conference signals the willful avoidance of reality at the heart of the elite European worldview.
To be clear, I admire European civilization. I believe America is far stronger and safer if Europe is healthy and capable of growing and defending itself.
I hope vice president Vance’s intervention at least starts European elites thinking about what must be done to revive their continent.
For more commentary from Newt Gingrich, visit Gingrich360.com. Also subscribe to the Newt’s World podcast.
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