Federal carbon tax on Saskatchewan a sham

It’s not clear how CO2 will be reduced by giving taxpayers their money back

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe calls Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s newly imposed carbon tax a “sham.” If sham means something that is not what it purports to be or is “a spurious imitation, fraud or hoax” it is an apt description.

The tax will be levied by Ottawa on gasoline, electricity and natural gas in Saskatchewan and will cost the average family about $400 a year, rising to $1,500 by 2022. The stated goal is to charge more for using fuels that create carbon dioxide so we won’t use them anymore.

A couple of years back, when the Trudeau Liberals first threatened the tax, Ralph Goodale, Trudeau’s lone Saskatchewan MP, breathlessly enthused that Saskatchewan could even abolish income tax and fund the province on a carbon tax. But because the province has its own plan that doesn’t include taxing families and making businesses and farms less competitive, the federal government will require Saskatchewanians to pay the tax and then give it back to us.

How CO2 is reduced by giving us money back is not clear.

In a cynical attempt to buy votes, the Liberals then proclaim, like a TV pitchman, “Wait, there’s more.” The “average” family will not get its $400 back but actually $600! Turns out that 70 per cent of people will get more back than they’re taxed, which prompted Goodale to call this a “new federal payment going to Saskatchewan.”

It caused former premier Brad Wall to observe that “usually when someone tells you to send in money but you’ll get more back in return, it’s a Nigerian prince.”

Because there’s no such thing as magical expanding money, the extra money will come from somewhere; most likely from businesses that will be refunded less or none of what they pay in. And, because rebates are based on family income — the higher your income the less you will get back.

How income redistribution reduces CO2 has also not been explained.

One frustrated caller on my radio show described the prime minister and his carbon tax acolytes as “the Clown Prince of Pot and his Bumbling Band of Bozos.” It’s hard not to agree.

The Trudeau carbon tax is $20 per tonne of CO2, rising to $50 per tonne in three years.

If the goal of such a tax is to incentivize or discourage behaviour, climate economists say these tax levels are far too low.

Just last week, the everapocalyptic Intergovernmental Panel in Climate Change — the United Nations organization that keeps moving the yardsticks on climate alarmism — was mooting carbon taxes between $135 and $5,500 per tonne of carbon dioxide.

Only when it costs several hundred dollars to fill up the average family car will people surrender and start walking, riding a bus or move out of the suburbs, which are deemed by the climate social engineers to be CO2 unfriendly.

At that point, though it is doubtful climate or weather will change one whit, politicians and carbon dioxide will dictate how you live your life.

Even in the linguistic bait and switch that saw global warming renamed climate change and now dubbed “climate disruption”, Canada’s human-generated CO2 in the world is infinitesimally small, just 1.6 per cent. If Canada stopped emitting all CO2 tomorrow little would change, despite current and future emissions targets of China, India, Russia and the U.S.

The sooner the federal election in October 2019 can be turned into a referendum on the Trudeau carbon tax the sooner this sham can be ended.

Trudeau, Goodale and the rest of this lot must be stopped at the ballot box. Gormley is a broadcaster, lawyer, author and former Progressive Conservative MP whose radio talk show is heard weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on 980 CJME Regina and 650 CKOM Saskatoon.