PBO confirms carbon tax hitting Canadians hard

Posted on October 31, 2024 by Ryan Dahlman

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should appoint Bill Murray to cabinet because the fight over the carbon tax feels like Groundhog Day.

In the film, Murray’s character is doomed to repeat the same day over and over until he makes some changes.

In real life, Ottawa’s carbon tax has continually punished Canadians when they drive, stay warm, buy food, invest in the economy and create jobs.

And the Parliamentary Budget Officer is doomed to keep confirming this.

The PBO released its third report confirming the carbon tax is costing Canadians. “The average household in each of the backstop provinces will see a net cost, paying more in the federal fuel charge and GST, as well as receiving lower incomes (due to the fuel charge), compared to the Canada Carbon Rebate they receive,” reads the latest PBO report.

According to the PBO, the carbon tax costs the average family up to $399 more this year than the rebates they get back.

By 2030, that cost jumps to $903.

Those are annual costs, so those numbers downplay the total cost over time. By the end of 2030, the carbon tax will have cost that average household up to a whopping $4,388, even after the rebates.

Even that downplays the total cost of carbon taxes. In its latest report, the PBO only crunched the costs for Trudeau’s consumer carbon tax. Trudeau also imposed an industrial carbon tax and buried another carbon tax in fuel regulations.

Groundhog Day news flash: higher taxes still don’t make life more affordable.

Carbon taxes cost so much because they hit almost all aspects of Canadian life.

Canada is a big place and the carbon tax makes getting around more expensive. The carbon tax adds about $13 to fill up a minivan, about $20 to fill up a pickup, and about $200 to fill up a big rig truck.

Canada is a cold place and the carbon tax makes staying warm more expensive. The average household uses 2,385 cubic metres of natural gas per year, so the carbon tax costs families about $360 extra to heat their homes this year.

Canadians need to eat and the carbon tax makes that more expensive too.

The carbon tax costs truckers about $2 billion this year and farmers about $1 billion by 2030. By making it more expensive for farmers to grow food and truckers to deliver food, the carbon tax makes it more expensive for everyone to buy food.

Canada’s economy relies on natural resources. The carbon tax will cost our economy $12 billion this year.

The Trudeau government also charges its sales tax on top of the carbon tax. This carbon tax-on-tax costs taxpayers hundreds of millions every year. That tax-on-tax money isn’t rebated back.

Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault claims the PBO report showed Canadians are better off with the carbon tax. He called claims to the contrary a “big lie” and “misleading.”

Nice try, minister. As the PBO report shows, the only way Canadians are better off is if you ignore the carbon tax’s “economic” costs.

That’s like saying you’re sticking to your diet, but only if you ignore the big plate of poutine you had after your Saturday night beer binge.

The reality is the carbon tax is costing Canadians big time and is not an environmental solution.

The PBO noted that “Canada’s own emissions are not large enough to materially impact climate change” and the “potential economic benefits of reducing Canada’s emissions” would “largely accrue to residents in other countries.”

That’s because Canada accounts for only 1.4 per cent of global emissions.

This repetitive bad news about the carbon tax would be Groundhog Day funny if it wasn’t causing so much pain.

But Groundhog Day wasn’t just funny. Eventually, Murray’s character learns from his mistakes. And then he gets to move on with a better life. There’s a lesson there.

Trudeau has a choice. He can keep imposing the same carbon tax and getting the same bad economic news, and things will keep getting worse. Or he can recognize the facts: it’s time to scrap the carbon tax, make things more affordable and move on.

Franco Terrazzano is the Federal Director and Kris Sims is the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.