Without consulting his caucus, party members, or the broader Canadian public, Erin O’Toole committed the Conservative Party of Canada to joining the centre and far-left parties in Parliament in their zeal to save the world from apocalyptic climate change. As of April 15, 2021, there isn’t a single party represented in the House of Commons that opposes a carbon tax..Doubtless, there are many upset Conservative MPs who had things sprung upon them, but on the record, there isn’t a single MP left in Canada that publicly opposes carbon taxes anymore..Most of the ink spilt over O’Toole’s big flip-flop focus on his plan for a consumer carbon tax that will begin at $20/mt, and increase to $50/mt (for now), and the fact that he lied about it all, after signing a Canadian Taxpayers Federation written pledge with the promise not to do just that..Lost beneath the headlines however is a hard-line climate crusade plan that, until recently, would have been considered radical even by Liberal standards. The full Conservative climate plan document should be a terrifying read to those who aren’t prepared to see the oil and gas industry ride into the sunset, those who are concerned about increased government spending, or those who don’t like the government micro-managing their personal choices..Let’s start with this nugget from O’Toole’s plan..“This will put a price on carbon for consumers without one penny going to the government.”.This just isn’t true. Just below that nugget are a long string of multi-billion dollar spending promises, including:.$1 billion for building out electric vehicle manufacturing in Canada.$1 billion for deploying hydrogen technology including hydrogen vehicles.$3 billion for natural climate solutions focused on management of forest, crop and grazing lands and restoration of grasslands, wetlands and forests.$5 billion for carbon capture and storage$1 billion for Small Modular Reactors..O’Toole promised his carbon tax wouldn’t actually cost Canadian taxpayers anything, but that’s an easy $11 billion in budgeted promises, and many more billions in the more ambitious, unbudgeted promises..Theoretically, O’Toole may not pay for them out of revenues from his proposed carbon tax; he may just decide to pay for it out of general revenues by increasing government borrowing, which he’s promised will continue long into the future. In the absence of any moderately detailed financial plan presented by O’Toole, the only two plausible options are that this will be paid for by the carbon tax, or by borrowing. Neither should please conservative voters much..As much as O’Toole insists his proposed carbon tax is not a tax — it is — he’s also proposing other bizarre new taxes that he doesn’t make any bones about calling “taxes.” The plan says the Conservatives will “[study] the potential for introducing new taxes on frequent flyers, non-electric luxury vehicles and second homes to deter activities that hurt the environment.”.21st century conservatism boils down to taxing people who like to fly or own a cottage. How O’Toole will determine which “non-electric luxury vehicles” fall under his new carbon tax regime is anybody’s guess. Would my pickup truck count? Would my wife’s SUV?.Doubtless, the luxury SUVs that Ottawa’s political elites are chauffeured around in won’t be any more expensive for their users..Key to O’Toole’s tenuous claim that his carbon tax is not a carbon tax, is that instead of paying the tax into the government’s coffers, it will instead be paid into a “Personal Low Carbon Savings Account.” ‘PLCSA’ doesn’t have much of a ring, so let’s just call them “O’Toole Petro Points.” O’Toole himself likens his scheme to an “affinity or rewards program” in the document..This is the single most bogus idea in the entire plan..At present, provinces that do not have federally-approved carbon tax regimes in place are directly charged the federal government’s carbon tax. Ottawa — after a modest handlers fee — turns around and rebates some of it back to carbon taxpayers. It’s unfair. It’s re-distributive, but it’s at least simple..O’Toole’s plan, by contrast, would initiate the largest bureaucratic growth in the administration of government since the introduction of the modern welfare state in the 1960s..No details whatsoever are provided as to how this will be administered, other than a statement that it will be “managed by a consortium of companies as the INTERAC system is.”.That is, Erin O’Toole will appoint a few friendly bankers to to run the massive new bureaucracy, for a modest handlers fee..The best that we can guess as to how this would be put into practice is Canadians would have to carry a new card in their wallets, to track the purchases O’Toole deems to be deviant behaviour. Using your MasterCard or VISA to pay for gas would likely lead to you paying the new carbon tax, but left ineligible to earn O’Toole Petro Points..Alternatively, we may need to save receipts for every single hydro-carbon purchase we make and pay an accountant a modest handling to fill our new carbon tax statements every year..No mention whatsoever is made of the massive indirect cost of carbon taxes, such as the increased prices of groceries or clothing. Or as Stephen Harper put it when he campaigned against Stehpane Dion’s carbon tax in 2008, a “tax on everything” that “will screw everyone.”.Administration of this program would surely breed untold miles of red tape. If administered by bankers as proposed by O’Toole, it won’t come cheap. The army of accountants taking up new residence in downtown Toronto would need to be paid, and it would almost surely come off the top of the carbon taxes that Canadians pay..O’Toole’s plan includes a raft of other policies that meddle into private consumer choices and provincial jurisdiction, such as a requirement that “30% of light duty vehicles sold to be zero emissions by 2030”..O’Toole says that, “Canada’s Conservatives will take this plan to the provinces but, unlike the current government, we will work with them, knowing that by doing so we’ll achieve more.”.Crazy thought here, but what if say, Alberta for instance decided it didn’t want to hop onboard their climate craze? O’Toole says he’s a nice guy, and can convince the provinces to all do his bidding. Trudeau said the same thing in his sunny-ways campaign of 2015. As it turns out, not every province will agree to go along with the latest federal program..On one key front, O’Toole explicitly promises no change whatsoever from the Trudeau carbon tax, keeping the industrial (AKA: oil and gas industry) carbon tax on track to reach an incredible $170/mt. But it’s all good, so long as the tax is administered by O’Toole..“We aren’t going to change the rules just for the sake of change. Justin Trudeau has already created far too much regulatory uncertainty, driving investment and jobs away.”.Trudeau is bad. O’Toole is good. Policies are the same..The good news in all of this is none of it will ever happen. If somehow O’Toole managed to find his way into the Prime Minister’s Office, he would have next to no chance of implementing his carbon tax/Petro Points plan..He would sit down with the bankers, and they would tell him, “That’s nice, but it’s going to cost a fortune if you want us to do it.” The cost would almost certainly be so prohibitive he would toss it back to the federal bureaucracy, at which point it’s now called a tax, even by O’Toole’s muddled vocabulary. In the end, O’Toole would be faced with the only practical pro-carbon tax option: keep Trudeau’s carbon tax in place..Alternatively, he could admit the entire thing was a terrible mistake, and revert to his promise to repeal the Trudeau carbon tax. But he probably won’t..It’s an unforced error of historic proportions that will likely cost the Conservative Party a historic loss in the next election..Derek Fildebrandt is the Publisher of the Western Standard
Without consulting his caucus, party members, or the broader Canadian public, Erin O’Toole committed the Conservative Party of Canada to joining the centre and far-left parties in Parliament in their zeal to save the world from apocalyptic climate change. As of April 15, 2021, there isn’t a single party represented in the House of Commons that opposes a carbon tax..Doubtless, there are many upset Conservative MPs who had things sprung upon them, but on the record, there isn’t a single MP left in Canada that publicly opposes carbon taxes anymore..Most of the ink spilt over O’Toole’s big flip-flop focus on his plan for a consumer carbon tax that will begin at $20/mt, and increase to $50/mt (for now), and the fact that he lied about it all, after signing a Canadian Taxpayers Federation written pledge with the promise not to do just that..Lost beneath the headlines however is a hard-line climate crusade plan that, until recently, would have been considered radical even by Liberal standards. The full Conservative climate plan document should be a terrifying read to those who aren’t prepared to see the oil and gas industry ride into the sunset, those who are concerned about increased government spending, or those who don’t like the government micro-managing their personal choices..Let’s start with this nugget from O’Toole’s plan..“This will put a price on carbon for consumers without one penny going to the government.”.This just isn’t true. Just below that nugget are a long string of multi-billion dollar spending promises, including:.$1 billion for building out electric vehicle manufacturing in Canada.$1 billion for deploying hydrogen technology including hydrogen vehicles.$3 billion for natural climate solutions focused on management of forest, crop and grazing lands and restoration of grasslands, wetlands and forests.$5 billion for carbon capture and storage$1 billion for Small Modular Reactors..O’Toole promised his carbon tax wouldn’t actually cost Canadian taxpayers anything, but that’s an easy $11 billion in budgeted promises, and many more billions in the more ambitious, unbudgeted promises..Theoretically, O’Toole may not pay for them out of revenues from his proposed carbon tax; he may just decide to pay for it out of general revenues by increasing government borrowing, which he’s promised will continue long into the future. In the absence of any moderately detailed financial plan presented by O’Toole, the only two plausible options are that this will be paid for by the carbon tax, or by borrowing. Neither should please conservative voters much..As much as O’Toole insists his proposed carbon tax is not a tax — it is — he’s also proposing other bizarre new taxes that he doesn’t make any bones about calling “taxes.” The plan says the Conservatives will “[study] the potential for introducing new taxes on frequent flyers, non-electric luxury vehicles and second homes to deter activities that hurt the environment.”.21st century conservatism boils down to taxing people who like to fly or own a cottage. How O’Toole will determine which “non-electric luxury vehicles” fall under his new carbon tax regime is anybody’s guess. Would my pickup truck count? Would my wife’s SUV?.Doubtless, the luxury SUVs that Ottawa’s political elites are chauffeured around in won’t be any more expensive for their users..Key to O’Toole’s tenuous claim that his carbon tax is not a carbon tax, is that instead of paying the tax into the government’s coffers, it will instead be paid into a “Personal Low Carbon Savings Account.” ‘PLCSA’ doesn’t have much of a ring, so let’s just call them “O’Toole Petro Points.” O’Toole himself likens his scheme to an “affinity or rewards program” in the document..This is the single most bogus idea in the entire plan..At present, provinces that do not have federally-approved carbon tax regimes in place are directly charged the federal government’s carbon tax. Ottawa — after a modest handlers fee — turns around and rebates some of it back to carbon taxpayers. It’s unfair. It’s re-distributive, but it’s at least simple..O’Toole’s plan, by contrast, would initiate the largest bureaucratic growth in the administration of government since the introduction of the modern welfare state in the 1960s..No details whatsoever are provided as to how this will be administered, other than a statement that it will be “managed by a consortium of companies as the INTERAC system is.”.That is, Erin O’Toole will appoint a few friendly bankers to to run the massive new bureaucracy, for a modest handlers fee..The best that we can guess as to how this would be put into practice is Canadians would have to carry a new card in their wallets, to track the purchases O’Toole deems to be deviant behaviour. Using your MasterCard or VISA to pay for gas would likely lead to you paying the new carbon tax, but left ineligible to earn O’Toole Petro Points..Alternatively, we may need to save receipts for every single hydro-carbon purchase we make and pay an accountant a modest handling to fill our new carbon tax statements every year..No mention whatsoever is made of the massive indirect cost of carbon taxes, such as the increased prices of groceries or clothing. Or as Stephen Harper put it when he campaigned against Stehpane Dion’s carbon tax in 2008, a “tax on everything” that “will screw everyone.”.Administration of this program would surely breed untold miles of red tape. If administered by bankers as proposed by O’Toole, it won’t come cheap. The army of accountants taking up new residence in downtown Toronto would need to be paid, and it would almost surely come off the top of the carbon taxes that Canadians pay..O’Toole’s plan includes a raft of other policies that meddle into private consumer choices and provincial jurisdiction, such as a requirement that “30% of light duty vehicles sold to be zero emissions by 2030”..O’Toole says that, “Canada’s Conservatives will take this plan to the provinces but, unlike the current government, we will work with them, knowing that by doing so we’ll achieve more.”.Crazy thought here, but what if say, Alberta for instance decided it didn’t want to hop onboard their climate craze? O’Toole says he’s a nice guy, and can convince the provinces to all do his bidding. Trudeau said the same thing in his sunny-ways campaign of 2015. As it turns out, not every province will agree to go along with the latest federal program..On one key front, O’Toole explicitly promises no change whatsoever from the Trudeau carbon tax, keeping the industrial (AKA: oil and gas industry) carbon tax on track to reach an incredible $170/mt. But it’s all good, so long as the tax is administered by O’Toole..“We aren’t going to change the rules just for the sake of change. Justin Trudeau has already created far too much regulatory uncertainty, driving investment and jobs away.”.Trudeau is bad. O’Toole is good. Policies are the same..The good news in all of this is none of it will ever happen. If somehow O’Toole managed to find his way into the Prime Minister’s Office, he would have next to no chance of implementing his carbon tax/Petro Points plan..He would sit down with the bankers, and they would tell him, “That’s nice, but it’s going to cost a fortune if you want us to do it.” The cost would almost certainly be so prohibitive he would toss it back to the federal bureaucracy, at which point it’s now called a tax, even by O’Toole’s muddled vocabulary. In the end, O’Toole would be faced with the only practical pro-carbon tax option: keep Trudeau’s carbon tax in place..Alternatively, he could admit the entire thing was a terrible mistake, and revert to his promise to repeal the Trudeau carbon tax. But he probably won’t..It’s an unforced error of historic proportions that will likely cost the Conservative Party a historic loss in the next election..Derek Fildebrandt is the Publisher of the Western Standard
