Docs show Trudeau knew carbon tax would hurt economy
Government's own data shows a big hit to the Canadian economy due to carbon tax.
Data from Environment and Climate Change Canada that the Trudeau government kept secret for years details the hit to the Canadian economy.
The data was only released Thursday after its existence was revealed by Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux.
Giroux was speaking at the House of Commons Finance Committee earlier this month when he revealed that the government had data showing the economic impact of the carbon tax was negative. Liberal MP Ryan Turnbull was pushing Giroux on how he was so certain that his report on the economic impact was accurate given a recently discovered error.
Giroux’s answer was that his work was very similar to what he had seen from the federal government’s own work.
“The government has these numbers on the economic impact of carbon pricing,” Giroux said. “And that’s your government, sir. They have not published anything.”
*Turnbull must have been ducking under his desk by then. Yikes!
The data released Thursday morning says that without the carbon tax, emissions would be 11% higher by 2030. It also shows that the carbon tax will be responsible for a multi-billion hit to Canada’s economy.
The data shows that without the carbon tax, Canada’s GDP would hit $2.68 trillion by 2030, about $25 billion higher than what it will be due to the impact on the carbon tax. The Conservatives say the impact is even worse due to inflation since the report was done in 2017.
“Trudeau has been hiding the fact that the carbon tax will cost Canadians $30.5 billion by 2030. This works out to $1,824 per family in extra annual costs,” the Conservatives said in a statement.
*And considerably more than that in provinces like BC which don't get the carbon tax rebate.
Speaking in the House, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the government has been covering up what they knew to be the truth for years and it had to be pulled out of the government like a rotten tooth.
“Because of our relentless questioning and the pressure that is weighing heavily on Liberal MPs, the government has finally relented and released part of the information,” Poilievre said.
The Trudeau government has been trying to deny or downplay any negative impacts of the carbon tax, or the “price on pollution” as they like to call it. Now their own report shows a significant drop in GCP, meaning we will all be poorer, from this tax.
Of course, that’s the impact on the economy overall but doesn’t reflect your extra costs that you pay at the pump, the grocery store, or for anything shipped by truck, train or boat.
The Liberals will now try to claim that while this economic price can be measured, we can’t know the cost of inaction on climate change.
Why not? Can't we measure the difference in Canada's temperature to see how much of an effect the carbon tax has had? Of course not! Because there is almost nothing we can do in Canada to effectively change our climate to a measureable degree.
Most air masses that cover Canada originate in Asia or the Pacific Ocean. The best thing we can do to affect our climate is to sell LNG to China to replace the hundreds of coal-fed power plants they operate. That would have an almost immediate effect on our temperature and precipitation patterns.
The second best thing we can do is to improve our forestry practices in such a way as to reduce the spread of forest fires and make them easier to fight. This will improve air quality in North America but have little effect on its temperature because it's not really CO2 that is driving the rise in temperature. Historically, the opposite has always been true.
That argument presumes the only action that could be taken was to impose a carbon tax, which drives up costs for average citizens.
First off, a carbon tax isn’t the only option – the Biden administration in Washington hasn’t brought in a carbon tax, neither did the Trump or Obama administrations before him, and they’ve still had success at lowering emissions.
Secondly, Canada accounts for a minuscule amount of global GHGs – erase them all tomorrow and we would cover China’s annual increase and a little bit more.
What this now released data shows is the Trudeau government knew their carbon tax would hurt the Canadian economy. They knew that their plan would make life more expensive and that we would all be worse off due to their plan.
They did it anyway.
Their plan, your pain.
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