In an attempt to prove they are not climate change deniers, federal Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole announced his party’s climate plan on April 15 that includes a national carbon tax rising to $50/tonne. .He says their plan will achieve the same emissions reduction targets as the current Liberal carbon tax, but is “vastly superior in preserving jobs and growing the Canadian economy.”.What caught the public’s attention was what some are referring to as “O’Toole Petro Points” to describe the portion of the tax that will go into a “Personal Low Carbon Savings Account” that requires Canadians to spend their points on government-approved green purchases. .With O’Toole Petro Points on offer every time you fill up with gas, you can collect Air Miles and save the planet, all at the same time! .It’s not clear how many Petro Points it will take to buy an electric vehicle, or even a transit pass, for that matter. The Conservative Party has compared their policy to a loyalty points program that is popular among Canadians; however, I can think of very few loyalty programs that offer meaningful rewards at minimal cost. .By the time you pay for that airplane ticket with your points, you may as well have paid cash for tickets for half the plane because you need so many points. Worse yet, there are often restrictions on when and how you can redeem your points, meaning sometimes when you need them they aren’t available, so you end up spending cash anyway. Come to think of it, sounds similar to the Conservatives’ plan. .Erin O’Toole repeatedly promised to abolish the Liberals’ carbon tax, including in a black-and-white written pledge with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. He’s now torn that promise up and implemented his own, although he swears that it’s not a tax. Let’s not kid ourselves. A tax is still a tax. And a lie is still a lie..O’Toole’s flip-flip does not appear to have anything to do with science. It was about politics, pure and simple. He hopes to trade one set of voters —hardcore Western conservatives that he can afford to lose — for centrist and centre-left voters in Toronto and Quebec. .Frustratingly for O’Toole, someone leaked the carbon tax plan to the CBC. .When will the Conservatives learn leaking stories to government-owned or government-subsidized media is not going to work well for them? A quick Google search shows their carbon tax and climate plan is under attack by the usual suspects who were never going to support it anyway. .More worrying for O’Toole, is the near-unanimity of opposition from conservatives outside the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal lobbyist industry. .Policies like the O’Toole Petro Points carbon tax will be so onerous and complicated that it’s hard to see how consumers are going to benefit, and how businesses are going to implement it. If it can’t be easily implemented, how can it achieve what it sets out to?.O’Toole’s promises that his carbon tax will be capped at $50/tonne, in contrast to Trudeau’s that’s scheduled to increase to $170/tonne. But O’Toole lied about the carbon tax to begin with. Coupled with his commitment to meeting the UN Paris Climate Accord’s targets, I think we can fairly assume O’Toole’s carbon tax will be just as expensive as Trudeau’s. .If both taxes will most likely be equally as expensive, then what about the back-end of their plans? Trudeau’s rebate program is certainly redistributive and unfair, but it’s simple and relatively easy to administer through income tax filings. .O’Toole’s plan, by contrast, is beyond complex, and will require a veritable army of new bureaucrats to administer. O’Toole’s plan to track each and every individual hydrocarbon purchase we make also raises serious privacy concerns. Do we really want the federal government tracking our purchases and whereabout in its campaign to save the planet from predicted doomsday? .And if O’Toole can so easily discard his solemn commitment to oppose carbon taxes, can we trust his commitment to support pipelines, or repeal the BC tanker ban bill? .It’s a sad reality that the West’s energy industry has no reliable friends left in Ottawa..Deidra Garyk is a Columnist for the Western Standard
In an attempt to prove they are not climate change deniers, federal Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole announced his party’s climate plan on April 15 that includes a national carbon tax rising to $50/tonne. .He says their plan will achieve the same emissions reduction targets as the current Liberal carbon tax, but is “vastly superior in preserving jobs and growing the Canadian economy.”.What caught the public’s attention was what some are referring to as “O’Toole Petro Points” to describe the portion of the tax that will go into a “Personal Low Carbon Savings Account” that requires Canadians to spend their points on government-approved green purchases. .With O’Toole Petro Points on offer every time you fill up with gas, you can collect Air Miles and save the planet, all at the same time! .It’s not clear how many Petro Points it will take to buy an electric vehicle, or even a transit pass, for that matter. The Conservative Party has compared their policy to a loyalty points program that is popular among Canadians; however, I can think of very few loyalty programs that offer meaningful rewards at minimal cost. .By the time you pay for that airplane ticket with your points, you may as well have paid cash for tickets for half the plane because you need so many points. Worse yet, there are often restrictions on when and how you can redeem your points, meaning sometimes when you need them they aren’t available, so you end up spending cash anyway. Come to think of it, sounds similar to the Conservatives’ plan. .Erin O’Toole repeatedly promised to abolish the Liberals’ carbon tax, including in a black-and-white written pledge with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. He’s now torn that promise up and implemented his own, although he swears that it’s not a tax. Let’s not kid ourselves. A tax is still a tax. And a lie is still a lie..O’Toole’s flip-flip does not appear to have anything to do with science. It was about politics, pure and simple. He hopes to trade one set of voters —hardcore Western conservatives that he can afford to lose — for centrist and centre-left voters in Toronto and Quebec. .Frustratingly for O’Toole, someone leaked the carbon tax plan to the CBC. .When will the Conservatives learn leaking stories to government-owned or government-subsidized media is not going to work well for them? A quick Google search shows their carbon tax and climate plan is under attack by the usual suspects who were never going to support it anyway. .More worrying for O’Toole, is the near-unanimity of opposition from conservatives outside the Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal lobbyist industry. .Policies like the O’Toole Petro Points carbon tax will be so onerous and complicated that it’s hard to see how consumers are going to benefit, and how businesses are going to implement it. If it can’t be easily implemented, how can it achieve what it sets out to?.O’Toole’s promises that his carbon tax will be capped at $50/tonne, in contrast to Trudeau’s that’s scheduled to increase to $170/tonne. But O’Toole lied about the carbon tax to begin with. Coupled with his commitment to meeting the UN Paris Climate Accord’s targets, I think we can fairly assume O’Toole’s carbon tax will be just as expensive as Trudeau’s. .If both taxes will most likely be equally as expensive, then what about the back-end of their plans? Trudeau’s rebate program is certainly redistributive and unfair, but it’s simple and relatively easy to administer through income tax filings. .O’Toole’s plan, by contrast, is beyond complex, and will require a veritable army of new bureaucrats to administer. O’Toole’s plan to track each and every individual hydrocarbon purchase we make also raises serious privacy concerns. Do we really want the federal government tracking our purchases and whereabout in its campaign to save the planet from predicted doomsday? .And if O’Toole can so easily discard his solemn commitment to oppose carbon taxes, can we trust his commitment to support pipelines, or repeal the BC tanker ban bill? .It’s a sad reality that the West’s energy industry has no reliable friends left in Ottawa..Deidra Garyk is a Columnist for the Western Standard
