Should any party decide to send the proceeds from the carbon tax to the provinces most affected by shutting down oil and gas exploration and development I’d vote for them. I won’t hold my breath waiting. As presently configured the carbon tax is just another wealth redistribution plan that has negligible effect on global warming and can’t possibly fix the issue until China and India severely cut their contributions. As a country we always seem to feel a need to be seen as Boy Scouts to the world. All good fun but outside of Canada no one’s watching. Let the Europeans have their carbon taxes as socialism is their apparent want at present anyway. Good luck to the Conservative fund raising efforts for the next election if they continue down the path of identifying as Conservative while swinging left with the other two parties. Maybe the 905 will step up. Again I won’t hold my breath.
I live in the GTA, in Brampton. In other words, I live in the area that the Conservatives need to win if they ever hope to form government in this country. Here in the suburbs of the GTA, few care about the carbon tax. Only select swathes of non-immigrant voters in the GTA care about an issue like that. The rest of the GTA suburbs care about immigration policy (which many disagree with the current governments policy), housing prices, road safety, criminal justice (gangs and crime), education, etc. And on those issues, the Conservatives are dead in the water. What's needed is a national housing strategy - ban on foreign investment, slow inflation, encourage more housing starts. What is also needed is a robust ethnic outreach strategy from the party, like Jason Kenney from former years. Cabinet minister level conservatives need to tour the GTA. Finally, we need to tie immigration to housing inflation. We aren't building enough houses to accommodate the immigrants we bring in. In the end, that's not fair to them and they know it. If housing goes up more than 2%, we cut immigration by a certain percentage. This is the kind of thinking that will win the GTA. But O'Toole doesn't seem to get that.
A carbon tax is clearly the preferred approach to addressing carbon emissions from the perspective of free market economics. However, I think the Conservatives have got 2 major problems to address: first, a significant portion of their base continues to deny that human carbon emissions are influencing climate change. Second, the Liberals were the first to adopt a carbon tax policy, and that's been coloring their perception of it since. I think the author is correct that part of the solution is linking a carbon tax to an offset in other taxes like the income tax. The argument becomes "Hey, whether you accept that carbon emissions are a problem or not, the world is moving towards regulating them. We can either get in front of this and have some control over how we implement it, or we can get a solution forced on us. And unlike the Liberals, we're going to give you back anything we raise in carbon tax in the form of reduced income taxes instead of spending it on our pet programs." The challenging part is convincing the base that they're going to be getting carbon taxation and regulation one way or another - there is no path back to the pre-2015 status quo. It's either the Liberals and NDP in charge, or else a Conservative party that can actually win in central Canada.
A clear, uncomplicated climate policy is a must. This year’s version was unexplainable, including by the policy desk at campaign headquarters. When I asked, I was told to phone Dan Albas’ office. Good luck with that idea. The idea of individual accounts sounds like another bureaucracy in the wings waiting to launch, $$$. Did you every try to explain/understand the plan??
The lack of clarity on guns, where was the meaningful discussion on Reconciliation, and constant criticism of Trudeau/Liberals didn’t help the situation…..the economy should have been at the top of the list.
And while i’m at it……prey tell why a member of Parliament doesn’t need to be vaccinated?
There is such a wealth of discussion on why the Conservatives lost - I can tell you that there were a lot of politically homeless women who were hoping that long before the election was called the Tories would make the defense of women’s and girls’ rights part of their platform. Once the writ dropped, of course, it was too late. A pro-woman stance gives rise to much frothing hyperbole about “literal violence” and “hateful bigots”, not to mention “transphobia”. Erin O’Toole refused to meet with an advocate for women in prison, who must endure males who conveniently self-id as female to get themselves transferred to a women’s prison. The msm refuses to touch this issue. Ditto politicians of all stripes, while women’s rights to safe spaces, privacy and dignity are gleefully erased at speed. I voted Conservative in the election. If we don’t see some backbone being displayed in respect to this, the Tories will start to lose the support of women, never their strongest demographic to begin with. The carbon tax issue is not, for most of the women I know, the main thing. The main thing is the appalling future in store for girls.
The problem is with the Liberal's fake carbon tax.
A legitimate carbon tax would:
1) Exclude emissions that support exports, to maintain competitiveness. Exporters don't pay GST for the same reason. Of course, this would upset the Liberal/NDP/Green base as Canada exports the majority of its oil and gas production
2) Don't exlude anything else. Again, this would upset the Liberal/NDP/Green base who are view taxation as a means of social engineering
3) Do not provide any carbon tax specific rebate. The existing GST rebate could be increased to compensate low income earners. The other revenue could be used to offset income tax rates
4) Impose the same carbon tax regime across the county as a federal tax. The current fake carbon tax regime has the Provinces collect it in some locations, with the Feds providing the rebate. Doesn't this seem designed to paint the Provinces as the bad guys, and the Feds as Robin Hood? Also, the fake carbon tax provides Federal discretion in determing which Provincial schemes are "good enough" to avoid the Federal backstop. This opens up carbon taxation to political motivations, such as deeming efforts in non-Liberal Provinces as insufficient, while similar measures in more Liberal firendly jurisdictions pass the test. A national regime would also simplify compliance and not bias business invesment decisions.
5) Do not subsidize or in anyway encourage allegedly "green" investments with carbon tax dollars. The intent of a carbon tax is to drive market based innovation, not fund government re-elections campaigns or social engineering
Even if O'Toole didn't achieve a breakthrough in the seat count, didn't his lunge for the centre win more votes in Ontario and Quebec than in 2019?
I'm curious if Clean Prosperity will do a poll on people's opinions of O'Toole's climate plan. Personally, as a climate voter, I was glad to see O'Toole's plan, but I still wanted a Liberal government which would keep the existing hard-fought climate policy in place, rather than a Conservative government which would replace it with a weaker, more complicated one.
I wonder if O'Toole can take the issue off the table entirely by saying that a Conservative government would just stick with the existing climate policy. Seems unlikely, given internal opposition.
I believe the majority of Canadians will not be voting for carbon taxes in the future, when the cost of heating one's home and driving to work becomes more and more unaffordable. The fact we live in a cold climate seems to evade many Canadians. The problem is that the majority of voters live within fifty miles of the US border to which leaves those Canadians who live in more northern communities out in the cold, literally. We have very little renewable energy to which the environmental movement and elites are pushing for to which is costly, unreliable, and unsustainable as well. Its become a religion where the deities they bow too are but a manifestation of pure fantasy. A mirage. They need a concrete plan that includes reality and not a financial plan to make the wealthy and elite even more wealthy to the detriment of the taxpayers. Just do a little research on who is involved and the wealth they have created for themselves while demanding we pay as they preach. That is what the entire affair has become and has done little to lower emissions. By the time the next election rolls around I can guarantee you that no one will be begging for carbon taxes. So what the Conservatives need to do is come up with more realistic goals that will actually make a difference instead of making the wealthy more wealthy and powerful. When looking at the costs due to taxation on oil and gas and heating your home this will give you a fair assessment to what Canadians pay just in taxes to drive to work and heat their homes. The costs will continue to rise due to higher taxes, lower supplies, due to the war on the resource industry. rcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/domestic-and-international-markets/transportation-fuel-prices/fuel-consumption-taxes-canada/18885
I guess Mr. Boessenkool has conveniently forgotten the AGM where the conservative base voted down a resolution recognizing climate change. Also, I think it is deeply myopic to think that people aren't voting for the CPC just because of climate change - there are several other reasons including but not limited to the rhetoric from certain MPs surrounding immigration, immigrants and refugees; the fact that the party continues to be in the thrall of social conservatives who would rather turn the clock back to 1950 and deny women their rights; the fact that the party continues to harbour people like Michael Cooper and his ilk and coddle their disgusting bigotry. So many reasons. Climate change is there, but it certainly isn't the miracle vote getter you think it is.
This piece lost credibility for me right at the beginning when Ken says: "We’ve just come through an election where the Conservatives had a credible climate plan." If he thinks the unworkable carbon savings account O'Toole proposed (and never filled in the details for, but which would have paid you more the *more* you emitted) was workable, then I have some swamp land in Florida I'd like to sell. Also, while policy matters, it probably isn't the best lens for viewing the CPC's last election results. Among the people I've talked to, O'Toole's perceived lack of trustworthiness (his early cozying up to the social conservatives, his flip-flopping) meant they paid less and less attention to what he claimed were his policies. Better policies on the environment, housing, indigenous reconciliation, etc will matter - when the CPC has a leader to articulate them who's seen to be authentic, consistent, and to have unified the party behind them.
Should any party decide to send the proceeds from the carbon tax to the provinces most affected by shutting down oil and gas exploration and development I’d vote for them. I won’t hold my breath waiting. As presently configured the carbon tax is just another wealth redistribution plan that has negligible effect on global warming and can’t possibly fix the issue until China and India severely cut their contributions. As a country we always seem to feel a need to be seen as Boy Scouts to the world. All good fun but outside of Canada no one’s watching. Let the Europeans have their carbon taxes as socialism is their apparent want at present anyway. Good luck to the Conservative fund raising efforts for the next election if they continue down the path of identifying as Conservative while swinging left with the other two parties. Maybe the 905 will step up. Again I won’t hold my breath.
I live in the GTA, in Brampton. In other words, I live in the area that the Conservatives need to win if they ever hope to form government in this country. Here in the suburbs of the GTA, few care about the carbon tax. Only select swathes of non-immigrant voters in the GTA care about an issue like that. The rest of the GTA suburbs care about immigration policy (which many disagree with the current governments policy), housing prices, road safety, criminal justice (gangs and crime), education, etc. And on those issues, the Conservatives are dead in the water. What's needed is a national housing strategy - ban on foreign investment, slow inflation, encourage more housing starts. What is also needed is a robust ethnic outreach strategy from the party, like Jason Kenney from former years. Cabinet minister level conservatives need to tour the GTA. Finally, we need to tie immigration to housing inflation. We aren't building enough houses to accommodate the immigrants we bring in. In the end, that's not fair to them and they know it. If housing goes up more than 2%, we cut immigration by a certain percentage. This is the kind of thinking that will win the GTA. But O'Toole doesn't seem to get that.
A carbon tax is clearly the preferred approach to addressing carbon emissions from the perspective of free market economics. However, I think the Conservatives have got 2 major problems to address: first, a significant portion of their base continues to deny that human carbon emissions are influencing climate change. Second, the Liberals were the first to adopt a carbon tax policy, and that's been coloring their perception of it since. I think the author is correct that part of the solution is linking a carbon tax to an offset in other taxes like the income tax. The argument becomes "Hey, whether you accept that carbon emissions are a problem or not, the world is moving towards regulating them. We can either get in front of this and have some control over how we implement it, or we can get a solution forced on us. And unlike the Liberals, we're going to give you back anything we raise in carbon tax in the form of reduced income taxes instead of spending it on our pet programs." The challenging part is convincing the base that they're going to be getting carbon taxation and regulation one way or another - there is no path back to the pre-2015 status quo. It's either the Liberals and NDP in charge, or else a Conservative party that can actually win in central Canada.
A clear, uncomplicated climate policy is a must. This year’s version was unexplainable, including by the policy desk at campaign headquarters. When I asked, I was told to phone Dan Albas’ office. Good luck with that idea. The idea of individual accounts sounds like another bureaucracy in the wings waiting to launch, $$$. Did you every try to explain/understand the plan??
The lack of clarity on guns, where was the meaningful discussion on Reconciliation, and constant criticism of Trudeau/Liberals didn’t help the situation…..the economy should have been at the top of the list.
And while i’m at it……prey tell why a member of Parliament doesn’t need to be vaccinated?
There is such a wealth of discussion on why the Conservatives lost - I can tell you that there were a lot of politically homeless women who were hoping that long before the election was called the Tories would make the defense of women’s and girls’ rights part of their platform. Once the writ dropped, of course, it was too late. A pro-woman stance gives rise to much frothing hyperbole about “literal violence” and “hateful bigots”, not to mention “transphobia”. Erin O’Toole refused to meet with an advocate for women in prison, who must endure males who conveniently self-id as female to get themselves transferred to a women’s prison. The msm refuses to touch this issue. Ditto politicians of all stripes, while women’s rights to safe spaces, privacy and dignity are gleefully erased at speed. I voted Conservative in the election. If we don’t see some backbone being displayed in respect to this, the Tories will start to lose the support of women, never their strongest demographic to begin with. The carbon tax issue is not, for most of the women I know, the main thing. The main thing is the appalling future in store for girls.
The problem is with the Liberal's fake carbon tax.
A legitimate carbon tax would:
1) Exclude emissions that support exports, to maintain competitiveness. Exporters don't pay GST for the same reason. Of course, this would upset the Liberal/NDP/Green base as Canada exports the majority of its oil and gas production
2) Don't exlude anything else. Again, this would upset the Liberal/NDP/Green base who are view taxation as a means of social engineering
3) Do not provide any carbon tax specific rebate. The existing GST rebate could be increased to compensate low income earners. The other revenue could be used to offset income tax rates
4) Impose the same carbon tax regime across the county as a federal tax. The current fake carbon tax regime has the Provinces collect it in some locations, with the Feds providing the rebate. Doesn't this seem designed to paint the Provinces as the bad guys, and the Feds as Robin Hood? Also, the fake carbon tax provides Federal discretion in determing which Provincial schemes are "good enough" to avoid the Federal backstop. This opens up carbon taxation to political motivations, such as deeming efforts in non-Liberal Provinces as insufficient, while similar measures in more Liberal firendly jurisdictions pass the test. A national regime would also simplify compliance and not bias business invesment decisions.
5) Do not subsidize or in anyway encourage allegedly "green" investments with carbon tax dollars. The intent of a carbon tax is to drive market based innovation, not fund government re-elections campaigns or social engineering
Even if O'Toole didn't achieve a breakthrough in the seat count, didn't his lunge for the centre win more votes in Ontario and Quebec than in 2019?
I'm curious if Clean Prosperity will do a poll on people's opinions of O'Toole's climate plan. Personally, as a climate voter, I was glad to see O'Toole's plan, but I still wanted a Liberal government which would keep the existing hard-fought climate policy in place, rather than a Conservative government which would replace it with a weaker, more complicated one.
I wonder if O'Toole can take the issue off the table entirely by saying that a Conservative government would just stick with the existing climate policy. Seems unlikely, given internal opposition.
As a meme: https://twitter.com/russilwvong/status/1383520928475144195?s=20
I believe the majority of Canadians will not be voting for carbon taxes in the future, when the cost of heating one's home and driving to work becomes more and more unaffordable. The fact we live in a cold climate seems to evade many Canadians. The problem is that the majority of voters live within fifty miles of the US border to which leaves those Canadians who live in more northern communities out in the cold, literally. We have very little renewable energy to which the environmental movement and elites are pushing for to which is costly, unreliable, and unsustainable as well. Its become a religion where the deities they bow too are but a manifestation of pure fantasy. A mirage. They need a concrete plan that includes reality and not a financial plan to make the wealthy and elite even more wealthy to the detriment of the taxpayers. Just do a little research on who is involved and the wealth they have created for themselves while demanding we pay as they preach. That is what the entire affair has become and has done little to lower emissions. By the time the next election rolls around I can guarantee you that no one will be begging for carbon taxes. So what the Conservatives need to do is come up with more realistic goals that will actually make a difference instead of making the wealthy more wealthy and powerful. When looking at the costs due to taxation on oil and gas and heating your home this will give you a fair assessment to what Canadians pay just in taxes to drive to work and heat their homes. The costs will continue to rise due to higher taxes, lower supplies, due to the war on the resource industry. rcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/domestic-and-international-markets/transportation-fuel-prices/fuel-consumption-taxes-canada/18885
As an aside pickup trucks represent over 25% of new car sales. Perhaps Canadians are blowing the carbon tax refunds on new pickup trucks 🤔
I guess Mr. Boessenkool has conveniently forgotten the AGM where the conservative base voted down a resolution recognizing climate change. Also, I think it is deeply myopic to think that people aren't voting for the CPC just because of climate change - there are several other reasons including but not limited to the rhetoric from certain MPs surrounding immigration, immigrants and refugees; the fact that the party continues to be in the thrall of social conservatives who would rather turn the clock back to 1950 and deny women their rights; the fact that the party continues to harbour people like Michael Cooper and his ilk and coddle their disgusting bigotry. So many reasons. Climate change is there, but it certainly isn't the miracle vote getter you think it is.
This piece lost credibility for me right at the beginning when Ken says: "We’ve just come through an election where the Conservatives had a credible climate plan." If he thinks the unworkable carbon savings account O'Toole proposed (and never filled in the details for, but which would have paid you more the *more* you emitted) was workable, then I have some swamp land in Florida I'd like to sell. Also, while policy matters, it probably isn't the best lens for viewing the CPC's last election results. Among the people I've talked to, O'Toole's perceived lack of trustworthiness (his early cozying up to the social conservatives, his flip-flopping) meant they paid less and less attention to what he claimed were his policies. Better policies on the environment, housing, indigenous reconciliation, etc will matter - when the CPC has a leader to articulate them who's seen to be authentic, consistent, and to have unified the party behind them.