Canada’s Carbon Tax

Why sabotoging our energy industry and penalizing Canadian families is not the solution to our environmental crises.

Trudeau’s government is mandating that each province must implement a carbon tax by 2018, or else the federal government will impose one for them. The tax is meant to reduce emmisions to 30% of 2005 levels by 2030. The cost will be $10 a ton in 2018, increasing $10 more per year until 2022 where the cost will be $50 per ton.

All of the extra cost placed on energy producers will trickle down and be paid for by Canadian consumers. Some sources claim that each household may as much as $2500 more per year to satisfy this tax. Even without this tax, Ontarians pay the highest electricity rates in North America. Many households are forced to choose between electricity and food as hydro bills skyrocket north of $1000 per month.

An emotional Canadian woman confronts Trudeau about earning over $50,000 per year but living in poverty.

The purpose of this tax is to make fossil fuels so expensive in this country that they will struggle to compete against renewable energy sources. The main hole in this plan is that the renewable technology required to power this country does not exist yet, much less the infrastructure implementing it.

When this tax is implemented, who will produce less emissions? Will there be any less demand for natural gas to heat our homes? Will there be any less demand for gasoline to power our vehicles? Will there be any less demand for electricity to power our lights and appliances? Of course not. Canadian families will suffer the consequences of this tax while carbon emission rates will not change their trajectory.

There are two possible solutions to reducing greenhouse gas emissions:

The first is to stop using products and services that consume power. To stop heating homes, to stop powering refrigerators, and so on. Some families are taking this route, but not by choice, as they can no longer afford to pay for energy.

The only other alternative is to consume renewable energy. The reason why we don’t do this already is because the technologies are only recently developed, they are ever improving, and because the infrastructure to produce this energy doesn’t exist yet. Gains are being made however, and we are reaching a tipping point where renewables will soon be cheaper to produce than fossil fuels. This process takes time, it is well underway, and it is beginning to be implemented all over the world.

Sabotaging our fossil fuel industry, the lifeblood of this great country, will not make the solar panels any more efficient. Punishing Canadian families with unprecedented and unpayable costs will not make the wind turbines spin any faster. A carbon tax is the wrong approach to solving this problem. Fossil fuels will be phased out by the great engineers and scientists trained at Waterloo, and at Queen’s, and at U of T, among other Canadian universities.

This is a science problem. This is a tech problem. This problem can not be swept away with a simple tax bill. That’s very naive. His carbon tax pressures Canadians to use alternative energy sources that are unfeasible or don’t exist. Canadian families don’t need a carbon tax. They need food and hydro. Canadian engineers don’t need a carbon tax. They need time.