Ok, so O’Toole has released his new Carbon Pricing scheme as a part of his overall environmental plan. There are a lot of parts to the plan, most are pretty standard for where developed countries are going. I’m going to focus on Carbon Pricing in the form of a fuel surcharge, because this is the change that will effect most Canadians. I have to be honest, it seems like a pretty out there scheme, but I think the carbon tax in general isn’t any better, so let’s get through this.
We are going to have the government take money out of the economy for the environment, that’s just a reality we have to face until public perception on how effective that is changes. So in an attempt to slow Trudeau’s train of destruction, O’Toole has proposed a compromise that might appeal to green Canadians (and therefore he might actually win an election). First the bad news, the fuel surcharge will stay at $20 a tonne and will be capped at $50. The good news is it will stop there and not rise to $170 a tonne by 2030. Some more good news though, is that money is not a tax that goes off into the government and you get a rebate that may or may not reflect your actual gas usage. A lot of people have the problem that the carbon tax leaves them with no money to make any green changes, one issue that I have always thought was an inherent flaw in the system. How do you live a greener life when you can barely afford your dirty one? Green changes are often costly and I think allowing people to have the most money in their pocket to do that will make a bigger impact, so this to me is the lesser of two evils.
Here’s where I can see this whole plan getting really messy and awful. The government, instead of taxing you at the pump, is going to give you credits you can spend on green items. How they are going to do that hasn’t really been thought out, nor has a price for it all come out. This is a huge problem for me, it seems like something our government isn’t set up to do, and his ideas of partnering with private companies sounds expensive. How are we going to get rebates on cash fuel purchases? Will it be like a gas points card? That seems like the only way this would be possible, but that means getting every fuel company on board and adding this to their system, which again, does not sound cheap or even very realistic. I guess the threat of losing business will force even smaller companies to do this, but if it’s a cost to them I have a huge problem with that, as bigger companies have the resources to throw around and spend on this. If we pay for it, how much will it cost?
If they can find a way to make this happen, and all of the fuel surcharges go onto a “fuel surcharge card”, then the problem is the government has to make a list of approved “green” items that you can buy and update it with new items that come to market. This seems extremely problematic, companies will have to send their products in and get them vetted, it all seems like more added cost. The only redeeming factor of all of this is that it will mean that people will be coerced to make green changes that will lower the effect of the carbon tax on everything else in their life, which is still going to be there. Yes, the carbon tax on industry isn’t going anywhere.
So is this better? I mean it’s a net reduction on future fuel surcharges so that’s a plus. The money you spend goes back to you, which is good for people in rural Canada. They often get shafted by the carbon tax because extra fuel consumption is a part of their life yet they don’t see any significant rebate on their taxes. Besides my problems with fuel pricing in general, it seems like a plan with a lot of room for critical flaws and mismanagement, which is what the government does best. On the other hand, who knows where your carbon tax money is going right now? Love it, hate it, this is the direction O’Toole is going.