Carbon confusion continues at every level
The precise word choice for this situation is “maddening.”
And what’s interesting is that the reason for the increased level of ire is the frustrating imprecision that has plagued Canada’s journey toward establishing, and perhaps someday actually meeting, standards for carbon reduction.
At every level of government, at every step of the legislative journey, carbon pricing, carbon taxes and carbon-reduction targets have remained a maze of mixed messages, conflicting agendas and insufficient explanations.
Earlier this week, the uneasy relationship between the federal government and Manitoba’s provincial government was once again tested by federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna’s apparent reluctance to explain what will happen when Manitoba’s proposed flat tax on carbon fails to meet the rising target established in the federal government’s controversial plan.
“We will implement the federal pricing system in any jurisdiction that chooses it or does not meet the national standard,” was the best Ms. McKenna could offer by way of explanation.
The Trudeau government’s carbon plan will impose a $10-per tonne levy on carbon emissions this fall, with the price rising to $20 at year’s end and an additional $10 in each of the next three years, reaching a maximum of $50 per tonne in 2022.
Manitoba’s green plan, on the other hand, imposes a flat $25-per tonne levy. The province’s carbon tax would exceed the federal standard for its first year, but then fall below the rising scale’s requirement in 2020 and beyond. How the shortfall dollars will be collected remained unexplained until Thursday, when Environment Canada issued a statement declaring that Ottawa will collect a separate tax to cover the difference.
On Friday, Premier Brian Pallister fired back, stating emphatically that the province will launch a legal challenge to any federal effort to collect carbon revenues above Manitoba’s prescribed $25 tax.
“If the federal government tries to invoke a higher levy on the people of Manitoba, we’ll see them in court. And we’ll win,” Mr. Pallister said. “I have a simple message for Ottawa today: back off, or we’ll see you in court.” It’s a carbon-cash conundrum. And if that wasn’t enough to set taxpayers’ eyeballs rolling back in their sockets, a new level of carbonrelated confusion was delivered locally by the provincial Opposition NDP, which employed a procedural measure to delay passage of the Pallister government’s carbon-tax legislation, Bill 16, until later this year.
According to NDP Leader Wab Kinew, the delay is necessary because Manitobans need to be shown that Mr. Pallister’s plan will do nothing to reduce carbon emissions in this province. As well, Mr. Kinew says the province’s plan for carbon-tax revenue amounts to a cash grab, because the government intends to use those dollars to lower income taxes and reduce the deficit, rather than spending the money specifically on green plans.
Annoyance and stalling
To recap, then: The federal Liberals’ carbon plan has annoyed both the Opposition Conservatives in Ottawa and the Progressive Conservatives in Manitoba, because the plan as presented is short on specifics and long on jurisdictional overreach; meanwhile, the provincial PCs’ plan has been stalled by the Opposition NDP’s procedural wrangling, which was inspired by the Manitoba legislation’s lack of specific green targets for green-plan-produced revenue.
If the whole thing has left you with a vague sense of confusion, you are not alone. Canada’s ever-deepening carbon-tax confusion is a very specific reason for public unrest.
(This editorial was published April 7 in the Winnipeg Free Press and distributed by The Canadian Press.)