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“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.” ~~ John G. Diefenbaker

FORSETH -- Woodworth is right, “What purpose does it (carbon tax) serve?”


Today (March 20th) I shared a brief commentary on my blog site; it was entitled “What’s the carbon tax about?’ -- it was written by former Member of Parliament for Kitchner Centre, Stephen Woodworth (Conservative Party 2008 to 2015)

In part he remarked:

‘… the Liberals who impose these (carbon) taxes are saying it was all just for fun! They aren’t really trying to tax you into reducing your consumption. They are actually giving you more money than you had before! (if you can believe them)

This leaves you free to travel more, eat more food shipped from a distance, heat your home even more comfortably, in general increase your consumption and its related emissions. They’re not going to impose punishing taxes on you to force you to reduce your emissions after all!

If that’s true, what purpose does the carbon tax serve?’

And he is right, “What purpose does it serve?”

Take my wife and I for example, who are both now retired. What’s easy to calculate is the carbon tax we pay on our natural gas home heating; it shows directly on our bill and amounts to $175 annually.

On top of that, we paid $265 carbon tax on the gas to fuel our vehicle.
That comes to a total of $440.

WHAT THAT DOESN’T INCLUDE, HOWEVER, is the hidden carbon tax we pay on pretty much everything else.

That includes the carbon tax on fuel to transport groceries, clothing, and other everyday household items that we all need to live … our portion of that gets passed on in hidden costs to purchase those items.

It doesn’t include the carbon tax paid by farmers and ranchers that grow our food, and raise the beef, chicken, and pork we all eat … our portion of that also gets passed on to us in hidden costs to purchase those items.

It doesn’t include carbon taxes paid by manufacturers such as the vehicles we purchase … power tools for home renovations … lumber and other building supplies.

And, Yes, you guessed right … our portion of that ALSO gets passed on to us.

Here in British Columbia we are not subject to federal governments carbon tax of Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government.  That’s because our province is the home of North America’s first carbon tax (imposed in 2008 by BC Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell). Because of that, we do not receive the federal carbon tax rebate -- instead the provincial government provides residents with what they call the Climate Action Tax Credit.

The tax credit is paid out quarterly -- based on income threshold -- in January, April, July and October. The total maximum amount equals:


Individuals:  $447
+ Spouse / partner (if applicable): $223.50
+ each child (except first child in a single parent family): $111.50

These amounts are, as noted above, based on income levels, which for individuals is $39,115 … and for families $50,170. On income above this, the credit is reduced until it zero’s out.

Now remember earlier I mentioned the carbon tax I pay on home heating, and gas for my vehicle, equals $440.

Against that the provincial Carbon Action Tax Credit my wife and I receive comes to $670.50.

At first blush it would appear that we are getting back $230.50 more than we pay, however that isn’t correct.

Remember all those other hidden costs that are built into the prices of everything that we pay?

Unfortunately there’s no way that I have to figure that out, and my guess is there is a VERY small number of people that would be able to do that.  One, however, would have to think that those hidden costs, amount to far more than that additional $230.50 my wife and I receive.

I’m also going to guess that we are in the same boat as the majority of British Columbians. In fact, because of our lower income, my guess is that a large percentage of BC residents are paying far more due to the scale the government uses to reduce the credit, based on income thresholds.

Regardless, let’s remind ourselves of what Woodworth asked, “What purpose does it (carbon tax) serve?”

Looking at the “Economic Effectiveness of Different Carbon Pricing Options to Reduce Carbon Dioxide Emissions’ (CERI, August 05, 2020), we can also ask the same question. It found:

“BC carbon tax policy...had no effect on emissions. Since the objective of regulatory policy is to reduce emissions, our results suggest that the carbon tax policy in British Columbia failed to achieve its goal. In fact, oil prices have been found to have a bigger effect on emissions in BC than carbon tax.”

Let’s conclude with this response, made by Woodworth, to a comment on his opinion piece:


“You can take your pick. You can believe the carbon tax is intended to lower emissions, or you can believe the carbon tax gives people back more than they pay. You can’t believe both!”

It’s your turn now … what do you think?

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