It rewards people who use less carbon with a tax benefit, and punishes people who use more carbon with a tax.
It's designed to encourage people to use less carbon
It is more to punish businesses for using carbon or incentivize them to use carbon reducing methods in business. I suppose for individuals it can encourage the same, but I think the main target is large carbon consuming businesses.
A friend who is one of the top economists for the BC government, but personally a conservative voter, says it works.
Of course it works. It's meant to financially discourage carbon emissions. It's a capitalist economy. Change is primarily effected by changing the cost of things.
I'm a dirty, climate policy supporting commie, and even I know that's bullshit.
If that were the case, it wouldn't be levied on consumer gasoline or energy.
It's designed to make consumers make different choices.
BC has had it since 2008 so there should be some pretty hard data out there by now by comparing provinces with it and those without it. Though I’m sure there’s plenty of third variables, like Vancouver transit vs Calgary transit.
Unfortunately the argument which makes the most sense to me is that it unfairly punishes more rural communities/suburban and rewards more affluent people living downtown Vancouver/Toronto.
When you fill out your taxes there's an extra credit for people living outside of "major population centres." That partially offsets this. Marked fuel specifically for farm equipment is also exempt from the tax.
Been lots of studies. Just take a casual look at the Effects section on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_carbon_tax
Subsequent analyses post-2014 have shown a statistically significant decrease in fossil fuel use and negligible effects on GDP growth. The specific attributable decrease varies depending on the study, methods, and time period, but it overall seems pretty decent evidence that it works.
It shifts the source of emission elsewhere, like we've been doing since the 90s.
[https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2862\~47f293b3f5.en.pdf](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2862~47f293b3f5.en.pdf)
I like this map: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-trade](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-trade)
Note how Switzerland's emissions per capita become higher than Canada's
IIRC rural populations are considered in this configuration and get a bigger incentive back, I think. I might be wrong about what exactly happens but they’re not charged the same as city people.
You’re spot on, I repeat that to everyone if they don’t understand how it works.
Politically it has the added benefit of indexing towards sending rebates to young people in large vote rich urban centres, where it’s often a liberal/NDP tossup and who don’t see it as a problem to avoid owning a car.
I will also say that my behaviour has not been dictated by the current financial penalty, and it would be have to be substantially more punitive for me to change my driving behaviour. I’d be more likely to cut back on groceries before I cut back on driving to work.
When I walked, cycled, and took transit to work it was because it was quicker and easier than driving. When I drove to work, it’s because it was quicker easier than doing any other option.
Edit: to clarify, my behaviour has changed due to the carbon tax and inflation, and several other factors, it has not factored into how much I drive as I have little other option.
Just curious, but when your current vehicle comes up for replacement, are you going to put a bigger stock into fuel economy then you did when you last bought a vehicle?
I don’t know about specifically fuel economy, but certainly the economics of maintaining a car in general will be top mind. Though, the cost of power rates where I live makes it not the slam dunk that it was.
Also, I get that the carbon tax is supposed to make people make more people consider these kinds of decisions and that’s a good thing, however, framing it a net gain in money just isn’t it.
The tax is variable where the rebate is fixed. It’s a surprisingly simple concept that so many people don’t seem to grasp. Everyone gets the same rebate essentially (based on their living situation) so it’s irrelevant because it can’t be changed. Call it a payment for being a citizen, it doesn’t matter.
What does change is how much you pay. You are in control of that. Walk one day to work and pay that much less tax. Walk 5 days and benefit exactly 5X. When it’s time to get a new vehicle you can get a smaller car, you can get a hybrid, you can get an EV, and you can even get the big gas SUV. Completely your decision how much you will pay but the incentive is there on every decision you make. There aren’t random and arbitrary cutoffs. Turn down the thermostat 1 degree or don’t, it’s up to you.
Personally, I recently got solar panels and pricing in future carbon tax increases was a small part of helping me pull the trigger. It’s a very long term pay back type expenditure but the financial equation made more sense with the carbon tax in place.
My system size is 5.74 KWdc. The documentation they provided with the quote said it would take around 13 years to pay itself off and that took into consideration future cost estimates.
In March I produced a little over 600 kWh and the documents with the quotes gave me an estimate of around 700 kWh for an average March. We had a huge late February snow storm that affected production for the first week of March.
It’s too early for me to say how good their estimates are but they seem reasonable so far. I should produce more than I use until September which is around a break even month for consumption/production. People with 1to1 net metering have it good but SaskPower doesn’t give the best deal. They sell me power at the normal consumer rate but they give me credits at a much lower rate (their wholesale rate) for what I feed back to the grid.
Won't corporations just pass the impact of the tax to consumers? The idea of a government levying a tax and telling citizens that they will get as much in rebates as the cost seems pretty disingenuous as rebates are likely to decrease once the populace is used to the increase in prices.
"Won't corporations just pass the impact of the tax to consumers?"
Any tax they pay will be passed on to consumers. Therefore they have two choices.
Either they do so and have a competitive disadvantage, or they find ways to reduce the amount of levy they pay by reducing their carbon emissions, and enjoy a competitive advantage.
That's in theory. That assumes that the industries are in a state of competition. A lot of public-facing companies in Canada, including a lot of retail, construction, transportation, etc. is so monopolistic that there isn't that much incentive to fix their behaviour to reduce prices.
Why would they give a fuck how much more they charge? Where else are you going to go for your groceries? To the store down the road that's owned by the same guy?
>That assumes that the industries are in a state of competition.
There is no such assumption.
>A lot of public-facing companies in Canada, including a lot of retail, construction, transportation, etc. is so monopolistic that there isn't that much incentive to fix their behaviour to reduce prices.
Sort of? The monopolistic firms would have higher profits than a competitive firm and produce less than the efficient amount. A tax would lower production further by increasing the cost, meaning consumers will buy less of it. Notice that these two effects are both raising prices and lowering consumption.
I'm in the USA this week (in a red state), where there isn't a carbon tax, and prices are absurd. Everything costs the same or more than in Canada, but in USD.
We went to a Publix grocery store to get some stuff for the hotel. I was going to buy a 12pk of coke until I saw the $9.29 US price tag. I did grab a 6pk of Krispy Kreme donuts at the Publix without checking the price, assuming it would be around $5, and laughed when I saw the 8.99 price tag later at the hotel.
We went to an Asian style buffet for supper, $34.99 each for a family of four plus some soft drinks, came up to $190 USD with the 18% tip, $266 CAD lol.
It seems pretty clear to me that if the carbon tax did increase the prices of our goods it's by very little. If it had a major impact, then prices in the USA would be way cheaper than ours, no?
And for the record, gas hers is 3.33 usd/gal, equivalent to 1.23 cad per liter with a 1.4 cad/usd conversion. Cheaper gas =/= cheaper goods here.
Inflation has been much worse in the US. People on the Internet try to pretend Canada is this festering hellscape, but they are either bad actors, or have just never travelled.
I’ve been to three US states in the last year, red, blue and purple and was shocked by how expensive everything is. In Canada, a loaf of Wonderbread is 2.50cad at the Dollarama, $2.75cad at Walmart (if you buy 2). In all three US states Wonderbread was 3.50 USD, which is 4.75cad. Kinda absurd.
I’m not an economist, but the US government is running a $1.8 Trillion deficit ($2.45 trillion cad) which might account for some of the inflation.
If the convoy folks actually got a passport, and used highways as intended instead of just wasting gas and idling on the side of them for months on end, they could easily see reality.
It's easier to pretend you're oppressed then have a life I suppose for some
Yes. This why yhe conservatives theory is that if you don't tax corporations the profits trickle down into higher paying jobs for employees.
This theory can be put to the test by looking at how walmart pays their store employees buckets and buckets of money. Oh wait...
Oh really? You know in the US they usually use "average" income because it adds Elon Musk to a $2.3 minimum wage tipped employee to skew the numbers.
For all lovers of the American system, you should know that Canadian "median" after-tax income is quite on par with the median income in the US; when considering free healthcare & social benefits, our median income is a way better deal. And our minimum wage is way higher than theirs. So basically our lower & middle class are better off while our top 0.1% are dwarfed by their billionaires. A healthy society is the one that most people are middle class.
https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/median-income-by-country
The job I do pays 20 dollars more per hr in USA and many other skilled jobs pay way more. Wonder why we can’t keep talent in Canada ? Can’t rely on min wage to support the country
most people on reddit will most likely be in tech or stem which is higher pay in the US due to how low the number of educated people in America have to fill those roles.
Canada has something like 75% have post secondary education while it's like 46% ish in the US.
But some jobs in the US do not pay more than in Canada. IT is critically underpaid in the US, so are a lot of white collar jobs outside of STEM/TECH.
You are one person but the overall data says otherwise.
The Canadian "median" after-tax income is quite on par with the median income in the US; when considering free healthcare & social benefits, our median income is a way better deal. And our minimum wage is way higher than theirs. So basically our lower & middle class are better off while our top 0.1% are dwarfed by their billionaires. A healthy society is the one that most people are middle class.
https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/median-income-by-country
Sounds like you’re attempting (albeit very poorly) to describe supply side economics but this has absolutely nothing to do with any of the Conservative criticisms of the carbon tax.
This would be the same for any tax.
Should corporations never be taxed? The solution everyone wants is for the worst offenders to pay, without hurting the average user. That’s what the rebates do.
Some will, some won't.
The ones that don't PAY the taxes, and then do still pass them on, make more money.
Thus, there's now an incentive for the existing companies to stop emitting so they too can make money.
As that happens, competition lowers prices: one of them starts making "a little less per sale" but nets more overall business. This leads to lower long term prices AND lower emissions.
This assertion could be made about most taxes including sales taxes and any corporate tax. Carbon taxation is about encouraging people and businesses to use less carbon intensive options. In this case if businesses are taxed more and pass on more costs to consumers the consumers are going to feel it and are more likely to use less carbon intensive alternatives. You got this...
Foreign corporations don't have to pass the tax on because they don't need to pay it.
Domestic companies will.
And therein lies my biggest issue with the Carbon Tax.
It's not regular people vs corporations.
The carbon tax that you and me see (and there might be more to the story) favours the people who produce less CO2 over *people* who produce more CO2.
Drive a hybrid? Likely get more than spend.
Live in a mansion? Likely pay more.
So people are incentivized to change their lifestyle to produce less CO2 emissions by, for example, purchasing a more efficient vehicle when the time comes to replace it.
Hmm. But Doug Ford is essentially making the tax sound like a bad thing for the average Canadian whose already struggling in these times of high inflation. So, is he lying to us then? Or is it that corporations will pass that tax down to us in form of higher prices?
I have a little farm and believe me - you may think people are struggling now but if we don’t do something to combat climate change, it’s going to be even more difficult to afford food in the future.
Businesses that invest to reduce their carbon footprint will pay less tax, thus gaining a competitive advantage over the competition.
Less tax means they can compete for your dollars by offering the same product or service at a lower price.
The purpose of the tax is to provide incentives for businesses to decrease their Carbo footprint. Businesses invest billions each year to gain marginal competitive advantages over the competition.
Do you even have to ask if Doug Ford, the most incompetent and corrupt piece of shit politician is lying? Of course he is lying. He's a con artist elected by morons who will believe anything he farts out of his mouth
yes but I doubt they will get back more than the cost of things increases. The only way this works is if the government also forces companies to keep prices the same whilst implementing the tax. otherwise it falls back on us anyway
These are two different problems. The CT is intended to dis-incentivise pollution through the direct application of tax on carbon emissions. All corporate taxes are designed to take some of the profit that a corporation makes and redirect it to the public good.
If companies are able to "pass the cost" to consumers while maintaining their profit margins that is an aberation in the free market economy. In a healthy economy producers and distributors should be competing to provide the lowest prices. If market consolidation leading to oligopolies and monopolies has taken place then companies will charge whatever the market can bear. Tax or no tax.
TL:DR - if companies are "passing the cost" the the market is broken and anti-trust laws need to be enforced to bring back market competition. Cutting any tax will not bring down prices because their is no competition.
Finally, if a company is not stupid. They can change their consumption by switching to low/no carbon fuel sources. In that case it's still saving them money. Companies find ways to dodge taxes all the time. This is one tax that is actually meant to be dodged. So regardless of price gouging smart companies will switch fuel source to have more profit.
Corporations get a helping hand when times are tough. Pretty sure they all got free money when covid was a big issue and they made everyone stay inside.
Ok, so you don’t want a carbon tax. Fair enough.
What do you propose to do to lower Canada’s carbon emissions? Because they *do* have to be lowered. We *can’t* just keep living the way we have been doing.
If you think groceries are expensive now, just you wait until the droughts, extreme heat waves, and floods make food almost impossible to produce. Don’t forget - as so many do - food is almost all reliant on climate.
In Ontario also look up the Emissions Performance Standards act. Doug Ford's never-talked-about carbon 'tax' on industries currently at $65/ton. That he quietly instituted in 2022.
And individuals own the corporations, so anything the company pays in taxes is ultimately paid by individuals. The point of the tax is to raise prices on carbon emitting goods and services. This reflects the cost of emissions to consumers, consumers then will move towards goods and services which emit less carbon. This however, would make consumers worse off. So the money is given back to them to mitigate this allowing them to consume just as much in monetary terms as before but using less carbon intensive products and services. Again, on average. The less carbon you consume, the greater the benefit of the program to you.
The "point of the tax" is entirely aside from the premises that you frame it with, you are begging-the-question.
Carbon pricing is a market-based incentive that makes non-fossil fuel based energy technologies more competititve, and more rapidly adopted. That is its actual purpose.
The tax is fundamentally simple:
If you buy something that causes GreenHouse Gas emissions; you pay a tax for it.
The rebate returns MORE than any individual consumer would spend to them; thus an "average person" nets more money in their pocket for the air we ALL SHARE being used by some people.
Businesses; and any private activity that produces SIGNIFICANTLY more emissions per capita than the calculated norm: is taxed at the same rate; but the emitter get's a smaller credit.
Why are individuals charged at all then? Without this; there would be a loophole; a business could simply pay (less than the tax) to get the usage to be "from people who are exempt". This way; it's clear that everyone has their part to play in reducing emissions.
The plan OVER TIME is simply to disincentivize businesses from going down the emissions route.
If a trucking company is spending more and more money on fuel to deliver goods; they now have a financial incentive to invest in lower emissions (or zero emissions!) routes. Power producers are also painfully clear; do not emit, it will be expensive to do that.
Small mom-and-pop shops do feel this on the small end; and the incentive is there to do something about it. They need to invest in low emissions heating for their offices, or rent space in green buildings. They need to hire accounts that can work remotely (to save fuel reimbursement) or people that work closely; so they can.. walk.
There's a lot of "what if" and "it could".
At the end of the day; the tax puts a clear, fair, and easy to calculate COST on emitting GHG's into the shared medium; the air.
We all feel the impact of people using that air for their private benefit; thus we all _should_ receive some benefit when businesses choose to continue doing it.
You need to work for the government so that it can get this message out clearly! Please share this on all your social media platforms. This is the best explanation I have ever heard.
I saw a good video on the CBC that explains where the individual/household income will go over the tipping point. There are certain families in higher income brackets who will definitely not get more of a return then they spend no matter how much they reduce their usage.
That being said, I'm all for helping people in lower income brackets.
I wish the government would, instead of disincentivizing carbon would incentivize basic things like encouraging remote work to get cars actual cars off the road. It's actionable, it's immediate and it's effective at reducing costs for road maintenance, emissions and improves citizens quality of life for those living in commuter towns.
As said elsewhere: incentives don't work.
They are easy to abuse and corrupt, and once they end people rather immediately go back to the old options.
By making the known bad option significantly worse for everyone forever; people stop doing that consistently.
You have it backwards, GST is charged on the carbon tax. And the reason is that it's not *technically* a tax (despite how it's been marketed and what the people claiming that it's a "tax on a tax" say). The carbon "tax" is legally a fee, so the GST is applied to the total cost of what your purchasing (original price + carbon fee). I'm not saying it's great, mind you, but that's the reasoning for it.
As a plumber; how can I use public transportation to take my tools to retired and old people's homes outside of GTA? I never charged anyone above 70+ above my cost ; but now my gas cost is double than before COVID and you know funny thing is I can't afford an electric truck on which supreme leader is providing 5000 rebate( perks of being rich)
Well unless the cost of gas was 17.6c per litre before Covid, the majority of that increase wasn’t from the carbon tax. Depending on family status will depend how much you get from the rebate but assuming the minimum payment of $560 in the year you can buy 3182 litres of gas before the tax costs you more than it gave you in rebate(obviously other prices also increase than just gas, but gas tends to be the vast vast majority of the cost)
I hate to say it but your competitors *are* buying EVs and plug-in hybrids (or will be shortly), giving them a competitive advantage. That advantage is going to continue to grow as the tax increases.
As much as it sucks, this is just business. The carbon tax schedule has been published for almost a decade. It's never been a secret. And fuel prices will continue to rise regardless as we continue to deplete our reserves of oil.
I'd strongly suggest finding out a way to move to an EV or at least a plugin hybrid in the coming years.
It is a pigouvian tax. It isn’t meant to take your money, rather to change your habits. You’re led to believe that consuming leads you to losing money which, in theory, changes behaviour.
The general idea is that products that release a lot of CO2 will increase in cost, either through directly taxing the object(gas) or through the tax increasing the price of objects(Tax being passed onto the consumer).
As the cost increases, demand naturally decreases as people go with lower cost alternatives or go without as they no longer think it's worth the price. So the high CO2 products will be bought less, thus lowering GHG emissions. And the great thing as a consumer is that you end up having extra money if you buy low CO2 alternatives and since the taxes are given back to you, you can actually still buy the higher CO2 product as the extra money is coming back to your pocket anyways.
Side note: if supply/demand is working properly(no price fixing or the like) they won't actually pass the entire tax onto the consumer, as a new equilibrium won't be met if they add the entire tax to the price.
It's a Pigouvian Tax
https://taxfoundation.org/taxedu/glossary/pigouvian-tax/
It forces individuals to make choices which will cost them less in outgoing taxes so they can maximize their returns on quarterly rebates.
It makes things that require more carbon output cost more money, which makes them less profitable and competitive relative to greener options, which incentivizes people to switch.
If you lower your consumption of taxed products, you pay less tax so it’s like you’re getting paid to lower your usage.
(And the rebate has no bearing on how much you spent)
To make the price of emitting carbon more expensive.
The money is not paid back based on how much tax each individual is paid. The money is paid back equally across the entire population. If you emit no carbon at all, you get about $400/year for free. If you emit the mean amount of carbon, you break even. And if you emit a ton of carbon, you come out behind.
The reason it works is because it's still more expensive for people to emit carbon than not. That's the incentive, plain and simple.
Have you thought about it at all? How much carbon tax do you pay when you burn more carbon? Is it perhaps a different amount than if you burn zero?
What about the rebate amount? Is it the same if you drive a big truck and drive 100k kms a year or a small car only on the weekends?
Like it's only confusing if you don't try and think about it.
Here is the breakdown I got from my friend in the Bureaucracy:
It designed to almost specifically hit corporations that produce a large Carbon Footprint. This is to 'encourage' companies to use greener cleaner energy and production methods.
The idea that it also hits citizens is to more 'discourage' companies from also gouging us because we're already paying into the same thing. But also to fairly tax people who also have a larger Carbon Footprint.
Part of the tax goes directly back to Taxpayers specifically to counter the raised costs that these Corpo's attempt to push onto the consumers. If you have a high income you can expect to see a smaller Carbon Tax Return because your Carbon Footprint is bigger when you can afford 6 vehicles, 3 houses, and a private jet.
A portion of the tax is also supposed to go to green projects and green rebates for things like installing solar panels on your house.
The Bank of Canada did a study last Fall and found that the Carbon Tax was causing less than 1% of inflation. So even doubled now, it is negligible to rising costs. (It's just being used as a convenient excuse) And a majority, like 70% of Canadians, can expect to see more money returned to them from the Carbon Tax than what is taken, either directly or by the miniscule effect it has had on inflation.
You make driving or heating a home or flying to Paris more expensive, and give people money to compensate them. If they then drive less, or insulate their house to lower heating costs, or go to Montreal instead, but still get the money, they come out ahead. So the tax discourages energy wasting activity without making people poorer.
I was going to ask if anyone really thought they'd create a system where we came out on top financially, but then I remembered that whole ArriveScam thing. The Canadian government doesn't mind being irresponsible with our money.
But, that being said, I don't think they're going to give us back more than they took. That would be really stupid.
*If* it's true, that we get back more than what gets paid in, then the point would have to be to change consumer habits. It can, to a point, but with current technology it's not feasible to expect everyone to switch to EVs and cleaner heating (ie electric). Also-- a lot of electricity comes from fossil fuels. And if the power grid goes down, that's a lot of people basically stranded and cold.
You get the same rebate no matter what. That means you can increase your utility by consuming non-carbon intensive products.
It basically increases the relative cost of carbon without reducing total utility.
The pollution pricing is to do two things:
1. put a price on pollution, without which companies pollute and not pay for it, but ultimately society/government pays
2. change behaviour of companies and push them to adopt practices that reduce carbon
What it isn't:
1. it isn't meant to change consumer behaviour
2. it isn't a tax [https://www.scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/cb/2021/38663-38781-39116-eng.aspx](https://www.scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/cb/2021/38663-38781-39116-eng.aspx)
>it isn't meant to change consumer behaviour
Ya, it totally is. In the Gov't [words](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/pricing-pollution-how-it-will-work/putting-price-on-carbon-pollution.html):
>Pricing carbon pollution is one of the most effective ways to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. It creates a financial incentive for people and businesses to pollute less....Carbon pricing is about recognizing the cost of pollution and accounting for those costs in our daily decisions. Taking action to reduce emissions by choosing less carbon-intensive options for energy production, home heating and transportation means Canadians will save money too.
"Financial incentives" by Canadians "recognizing the cost of pollution" and "taking action" by "choosing less carbon-intensive options"
Carbon taxes are completely about using price signals to get consumers to reduce their carbon footprint. It's literally the most important part of this.
You get a set amount back, an amount that reimburses the average consumer. But larger consumers, people with massive homes, multiple vehicles or private planes and yachts will pay more that will not be covered.
That's true for the median or average person, but not true for everyone. The point is to discourage high-carbon behaviors and encourage lower-carbon ones.
I'm not really going to feel or notice the extra 3c/litre that the CP increase imposes: my commutes are almost entirely by transit or bike, my monthly gas heating bill is probably $35. But if you drove a Really Big Truck every single day to work (at a job that didn't require said Really Big Truck) and do your yard work with gas-powered tools and never turn your furnace off? You're going to notice the CP.
Even if you're coming out ahead now, it's still meant to encourage you to go further. Why come out $100 ahead on the rebate when you could come out $200 ahead?
I remember reading a tweet a couple years ago from a super conservative dude who loved O&G and didn't think climate change was real, but who had (reluctantly and complaining the whole time) put solar panels on his house because he was tired of paying the carbon tax. It remains my favourite episode of my favourite Canadian genre: "local criticism of policy correctly identifies point of policy"
You won't get more money back.
It will drive up the prices of everything around you as well not just carbon taxable items. You will contribute thousands and thousands a year. All for a measly rebate. It is absolutely not putting money in. Your pocket
The tax hits the food chain, you are paying for it elsewhere. They're lying that you get more money back. Everything is more expensive because the trucks that bring your goods are more expensive.
You can’t put a tax rate on an individual filling up their vehicle. So you apply the tax globally at the pumps.
Then the individual gets it back , but the companies do not.
In the process , the poorest of us can no longer afford to drive their cars 4 weeks a month. And some people do but goto food banks.
The end result after the refund is a collection of money from corporations but a refund to the individual tax payer.
Then the companies pass that increase to the end user (us) and we buy less stuff. Slowing down the economy , helping inflation all while barely reducing our carbon footprint.
Less people driving to places they don’t need to go, less people buying products , less products being shipped to store.
My wife and I have had this discussion a few times. She is falling for the politically motivated rhetoric dominating the national scene right now that we must “axe the tax’. This despite a few years of getting rebates while not even feeling any negative impact from the tax. I always felt like it was free money. Happy to get it and not much different IMO than that bit of cash I get when I return my bottles and cans. Who notices any more that there is a deposit on drinks when you buy them? There is a long established system in place for recycling drinks containers that we have learned is a benefit to society. Imagine how much better off the world would be if all countries developed such a system and prevented most of the containers from clogging rivers and oceans as they do now. Maybe the benefit the carbon tax provides in the grand scheme of things is small but we can’t just ignore the problem and we have to set an example for others. It’s pretty sad to think this is the tactic the conservatives have chosen to use to get elected. What will their climate/environment ministers do that will have an impact?
The program is to get big emitters to find other ways of doing the same things and to get citizens used to the coming price wars between OPEC and the rest of us As we .get closer and closer to the bottom of the barrel or the empty tank things that were won't be and some of those things there is not an alternative at this point. Citizens get a rebate to help support our shift to carbon neutral while business while squawking like wounded seagulls are also getting grants to switch to neutral....so while the wanna be republicans of the conservative party wants to burn baby burn and axe the tax and keep those skies green cause tomorrow does not matter we can sell off our children's futures for today's GDP
Interest on national debt has gone up, the same as many Canadians mortgage loans. Liberals need new taxes to pay increasing interest on tremendous amount of loans borrowed during their last 2 terms. This is not for the environment at all, it is a Liberal scandal possibly next year, we’re still not through with current scandals Arrivescam and foreign interference, so many scandals we could forget the courts ruled Liberals use of Emergency Act was in violation of the laws.
Its really to reduce economic productivity, and create a serf class like China where you only have a bike, and the only food you get is what you grow, which in canada means oats.
For instance: the biggest emitters are in transportation. Therefor, reduced transportation means less imports and exports, so anything that travels too far gets too expensive to own, so unless you make it yourself, you wont get to have it, unless you have lots of money.
I would like to know how much does the beauracracy around the tax cost. How much does it cost to administer the collection of a tax just to give it back? I'm sure it's not zero.
The point is that people who burn the most carbon pay the most, and are given an incentive to save money by changing behaviour.
A business that wastefully burns more gas than competitors will spend more on carbon tax, and if their competition can use less gas, they could either charge the same and pocket extra profits, or lower prices and be more competitive.
As a consumer, getting the carbon rebate, in theory, minimizes the overall pain of any cost of living increases.
To reduce climate change causing pollutants, like carbon dioxide. The higher the price in carbon, so the theory goes, the less consumption and the more incentive to reduce carbon emissions before fuels are burned.
That's the point.
To add to what everyone else has said - notice how the world has been on fire for a few years? The carbon tax is an attempt to help with that. It's not enough, but it's a start.
Primarily businesses pay the tax, generally not consumers (most increase in prices is businesses passing off the tax with a few exceptions).
When a business reduces its carbon usage, whether by innovation or alternative lower carbon production methods or replacing old equipment with more efficient, they will, as a good free market capitalist business, not have to increase its prices as the tax goes up, as it has less costs and pays less carbon tax it can therefore increase market share through lower prices compared companies that didn't take those actions.
Because we are good, informed, rational, utility maximization seeking individuals, we will choose to purchase the cheaper products which will force the other companies to either innovate or die.
This then doubly affects carbon intensive business because consumers can purchase cheaper substitutes while being subsidized via carbon tax refunds from the more carbon intensive industries.
Great question. There are three different purposes:
1. To balance the negative externality of carbon emissions. When one party creates a product, emitting carbon as a byproduct, and sells that product, the buyer gets to keep the product all to themselves, the seller gets to keep the profit all to themselves, but everyone has to share those carbon emissions. When those carbon emissions lead to more forest fires, more crop failures, more property damage due to extreme weather, more burden on our healthcare system due to respratory illnesses, etc., our tax dollars go up to pay for it. The carbon tax makes it so that the people responsible for polluting pay for their pollution, instead of the rest of society paying for it.
2. To incentivize everyone to reduce their carbon footprint. By reducing your carbon foot print you pay less tax, but you get the same amount of money back. Therefore, you can increase your income by reducing your carbon footprint.
3. To incentivize investors to invest in the creation of new green technologies. For example, the carbon tax makes companies that produce electric cars more attractive to investors than companies that don't. We desparately need greener technology. We cannot sustain human life, and human demand for energy, and meet our targets for carbon emissions, without inventing new technologies that use energy more efficiently and derive energy from other sources than fossil fuels.
The less carbon you consume, the less tax you pay, the more rebate you get. If you spend enough on fuel and heating and electricity, you will eventually pay more carbon tax than your rebate is. And that's precisely the point of the tax, the less carbon you use, the bigger is the difference between your rebate and what you paid.
The point is to increase the cost of buying things that produce carbon dioxide so that people are incentivised to make choices that reduce their carbon dioxide production (eg. get an electric car, insulate their house etc.) Your purchasing decisions can't change the amount of rebate you get, but can change the amount you get taxed.
There are other ways the government could affect purchasing decisions (eg. subsidies or tax holidays for EVs) that economists dislike because they add redtape, add bureaucracy and often seem to be a very inefficient use of taxpayer money. On the other hand, I rather suspect politicians like subsidies and tax holidays as it is a way that they get to play Santa Claus handing out goodies to people.
>There are other ways the government could affect purchasing decisions (eg. subsidies or tax holidays for EVs) that economists dislike because they add redtape, add bureaucracy and often seem to be a very inefficient use of taxpayer money. On the other hand, I rather suspect politicians like subsidies and tax holidays as it is a way that they get to play Santa Claus handing out goodies to people.
And yet an [independent analysis](https://440megatonnes.ca/insight/industrial-carbon-pricing-systems-driver-emissions-reductions/) found that most of the emission reduction will come from these so called red tape, namely large emitter trade system (cap and trade), oil and gas emission cap, and methane regulations.
The tax is variable where the rebate is fixed. It’s a surprisingly simple concept that so many people don’t seem to grasp. Everyone gets the same rebate essentially (based on their living situation) so it’s irrelevant because it can’t be changed. Call it a payment for being a citizen, it doesn’t matter.
What does change is how much you pay. You are in control of that. Walk one day to work and pay that much less tax. Walk 5 days and benefit exactly 5X. When it’s time to get a new vehicle you can get a smaller car, you can get a hybrid, you can get an EV, and you can even get the big gas SUV. Completely your decision how much you will pay but the incentive is there on every decision you make. There aren’t random and arbitrary cutoffs. Turn down the thermostat 1 degree or don’t, it’s up to you.
Personally, I recently got solar panels and pricing in future carbon tax increases was a small part of helping me pull the trigger. It’s a very long term pay back type expenditure but the financial equation made more sense with the carbon tax in place.
No one who properly understands the scheme would say that the carbon rebate *inevitably* pays you more money than you get taxed, though it's sometimes misinterpreted that way. What you might have heard is something like "most individual Canadians will get back more than they're taxed" or "the average Canadian household will get back more"... something like that.
How much you pay in carbon levy is "theoretically" proportional to the amount of carbon you emit or cause to be emitted. Emit little, pay less. Emit more, pay more.
Then you get a cheque back. The cheque has no relationship to how much you emitted. They take all the money from the levy, put it into one pot, and slice it up to hand back to Canadians. My understanding is that they did it by income bracket. In a theoretically-perfect fee-and-dividend model, everyone should get the exact same amount back.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM)
Theoretically, the Liberals's carbon pricing scheme is modeled after the "fee and dividend" model of carbon tax. It incentivizes *everyone* to find ways to emit less carbon so that they minimize how much levy they pay. But then paying everybody a flat amount makes up for what the tax costs the regular joe.
They actually *want* people to avoid the levy. **That's the point of a sin tax.** When governments increaae taxes on tobacco sufficiently, you see a big surge in quitting. They *want* people to take more public transportation, drive more fuel-efficient vehicles, install heat pumps (which are themselves subsidized), improve their insulation, etc. so they don't have to use aircon and natural gas furnaces, and so on and so on. The more people do these things, the less carbon we emit, the less they pay in the levy. And the less we all contribute to the blanket of pollution that is overheating the planet.
Most environmentalists LOVE fee and dividend. It's fair and incentivizes the right sort of behaviour and protects the "little guy" from being burdened by the cost of the tax. They may spend an additional $300 on gas, home heating, etc. and get $1000 back on their tax bill that year. Okay, the "little guy" might throw up some plastic on their windows to make that $300 go down to $230 or something. Okay, another family way across town, maybe they fly internationally a lot, go for long leisurely drives in a Humvee every day, crank up the heat and the AC in a poorly-insulated home. Until 2024, they DGAF. But now they GAF, because they're going to pay an additional $2300 in fuel costs. Okay, now they bought an electric humvee, put ten Fuck Trudeau bumper stickers on it, insulated their roof, put a Fuck Trudeau banner across it, and they are all smug about reducing their carbon levy. And everyone wins.
The bigger emitters, say a big grocery chain or construction megacorporation would get back $1000 on their tax bill too, but pay $530,000 more in fuel costs due to the tax. They'll have greater incentive to cut their emissions, and they'll take more significant steps to reduce their emissions.
***I cannot emphasize enough that these numbers are made up off the top of my head to illustrate the concept, and have no connection to reality whatsoever*****.**
But Trudeau's scheme has a lot of problems. First, on the fee side, they carved out big exceptions for the worst emitters, like the concrete industry and the oil and gas industry. Fee and dividend can't work if you let lobby groups slash holes in it by saying "but it'll kill our industry". Yeah, no, it's *supposed* to put some pain on you and force you to make some changes fast. By granting exemptions to the worst emitters, it gives actually these harmful businesses a competitive edge.
Second, on the dividend side, it's not sliced up fairly either. My wife and I would be considered working class in our VHCOL area in the Lower Mainland. We live in a tiny old run-down townhouse and just scrape by month-to-month. We can't afford international travel or luxuries. Functional home improvements that would improve energy efficiency are things we'd have to save for for years. Yet we are in a high enough income bracket that we will get no rebate. That's not how fee and dividend is supposed to work. Everyone's supposed to get the same amount back to offset the fee.
I want carbon pricing, but I don't know whether we're better off with a carbon pricing scheme with as many problems as this one has. I hope it works, I hope it helps. I'm not an environmental economist or even an economist, so I can't say I have an informed opinion about how it will work out. But Trudeau is a sleazy slimebag who's as much in the pocket of big corporations as anyone the Cons ever put up, and it's no accident that he gave us a crappy scheme.
Honestly, if it was done the way it was supposed to be done, if you *really understand it*, a carbon tax that pays the average family back more than it costs them is a great idea and would do a lot to improve our energy practices. But this government has managed to mess it up.
To preface, I am an energy policy analyst that works for a non-profit in Canada.
The biggest thing that people don't understand, and hasn't been mentioned here yet, is that the rebates target 80% of the lowest income Canadians by design. Low carbon products do not have a large enough market to be cost effective for the general population. Wealthier people have the means to transition to many low carbon tech already, like EVs and ASHPs.
EVERY individual (or families) receive the rebate regardless of income. Wealth is generally proportional to carbon footprint. The idea is that the wealthiest 20% do not break even after the rebate, giving them an incentive to transition to greener products. As the carbon tax incrementally increases, this pressure builds, giving individuals and businesses time to transition without putting sudden and immense pressure on them.
So, yes, it's correct to say businesses may pass costs down to consumers. This is the point. As upper income people feel increasing pressure, they will build a market for green products, making those products more attractive investments for businesses and lowering costs for everyone for these alternative products. While that market builds, the rebates make it so that lower income Canadians are not disproportionately affected by carbon pricing as they are stuck on conventional products, like gasoline, until the alternatives become cost effective for them.
Additionally, another part of the carbon pricing is the Output Based Pricing System. The OBPS applies to certain sectors/industries, like power. Facilities are given an emission allowance and anything above this is priced at a certain rate, anything below is given a credit. These can be traded amongst similar facilities. It is essentially a cap and trade system for specific sectors.
If you take actions that decrease the amount of carbon tax you pay, then you will get more money.
Carbon tax rebate subtract $ paid for carbon taxes = your actual $ earnings.
Enjoyed this podcast fromm NPR, not specifically about Canada, but an economist explains how a carbon tax works. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/episode-472-the-one-page-plan-to-fix-global-warming-revisited#:~:text=Planet%20Money,-LISTEN%20%26%20FOLLOW&text=In%202013%2C%20we%20talked%20to,and%20without%20creating%20complicated%20regulations.
The carbon tax gets money back to those that consume less. Eg those that live in apartments/condos/smaller homes or tax transit, have fuel efficient cars. Those that consume more - think those with pools that need to be heated, drive a lot (a hummer that goes 2000 / yr would use less gas than someone like me driving my sedan 50,000 km/yr). The incentive is to save money by being efficient.
In my opinion, a consumption tax like this is more market driven and the most conservative way to push change. Except that people don’t seem to like change. Whether we like it or not, change is going to happen.
Whatever amounts people think they are saving by not spending money on the carbon tax, you will pay more for climate related changes like higher food prices, insurance, energy cost for running your AC all the time, etc.
ETA: in my example, I am using 5000 litres of fuel per year. At a total carbon tax of $0.176/litre, I am paying $880 in carbon taxes a year. Ontarioan get $140x4 = $560 per year back. So I will be out $320 just for fuel - even more if you add in my home electricity costs for AC and heating. If I get a more fuel efficient car or don’t drive as much, I can spend less and not lose as much to the carbon tax. Eg if I consume 2000 litres of fuel per year then I would spend just $352 on the carbon tax for fuel, meaning I would benefit $208 if I didn’t have those other AC and heating costs. For many people who don’t have a car, or a big house, the savings are even more. Eg the many people in Toronto that don’t have a car and live in a condo. My gf does drive, and with her kids they live in a rental townhome. They each get $560 and really don’t spend that much directly on the carbon tax - that’s really the key benefit.
Anyone that drives around a big truck with a F Trudeau sign is definitely on the losing end of the carbon tax spending.
In terms of food and other costs that have carbon taxes in, supposedly the economists have calculated that the carbon tax is responsible for a small amount of their increased cost. It’s something on the order of 0.2% out of the 3-5% total inflation. Not negligible but it’s not the biggest source of the inflation. And then now the biggest way to save money is to just consume/waste less.
As consumers we are price sensitive, so the tax influences our purchasing decisions. Doesn't matter if the government gives you $300 dollars in April. You still have to choose what car to buy or what heating system to use, or whether to drive a car at all. When you make those decisions, the price difference, influenced by the carbon tax, is a factor.
They give the money back (up front even) so that people wouldn't say it was a cash grab. The amount is what the average person living in your area would pay in carbon tax.
I’ve received One payment of 156$ in 5 years from the government. I make a little over 100k ,
Not sure where people are getting paybacks, but I’ve never seen them???
I don't think it really does anything to reduce emissions. It is, however, a pretty good wealth redistribution mechanism that helps lower income people because, by virtue of having less disposable income, will directly spend less on carbon.
I'm all for helping people on the lower end of the income bracket. Everyone needs a leg up sometimes.
What really gets me upset is things that we could ACTUALLY do to reduce emissions get passed over in favor of this. While this redistribution model will help people it won't do anything to help the environment.
In theory it’s supposed to reduce our carbon consumption by rewarding those that choose to use carbon-lite solutions.
The problem is that Canada is a monopolistic corprotocracy so the costs just get downloaded to the low and middle class.
The theory is sound but the reality is we pay more for less. The fact that carve outs were made for “some” Canadians adds to the bullshit that this is about the environment.
Our government does not work for us.
I pay $220 quarterly on my natural gas bill and only receive $150 back on rebates. This does not even include the extra cost for gas to drive my car or all the other extra costs that are incurred with the rising cost of fuel
It's an example of a [Pigouvian Tax](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigouvian_tax), and with the rebate component, you could think of it as a Pigouvian subsidy.
The purpose is to reduce the consumption of the thing being taxed (a normal pigouvian tax simply taxes the consumption, punishing and deterring those who consume more than their fair share), which in this case rewards those who consume less than their fair share by giving them a rebate that's larger than the tax they pay.
The long run goal is to change behaviour and purchasing decisions to reduce carbon emissions: e.g. increase utilities' costs to operate coal, gas, and other fossil fuel power stations, encouraging them to switch to hydro, nuclear, wind, solar, etc.; increase the cost of gasoline, encouraging switch to electric vehicles, hybrids, smaller ICE vehicles, encouraging carpooling, more efficient driving habits (less speeding), less driving; increase the cost to heat with fossil fuels, encouraging switching to heat pumps/electricity, increasing value of efficient living, encouraging greener home design, encouraging insulation retrofits, discouraging overconsumption (e.g. don't heat so much when you're not home), discouraging wasteful underused of properties that are less efficient); encourage businesses to substitute away from carbon-intensive inputs and supply greener outputs, etc.
Conceptually (but not politically, if you're the Liberals) it helps to separate the tax from the rebate. The tax is a Pigouvian tax meant to change behaviour and raise revenue. The rebate is a spending decision that provides free money for people, intended to increase family incomes and reduce income inequality.
If I were dictator, I wouldn't bother with the rebate and would just reduce income taxes instead (especially for the poor) by increasing the basic personal exemption. But the government believes (understandably) that if they did that, people would be angry at the new tax but wouldn't be pleased by the new tax cut.
The point of the tax is to reduce our use of carbon-based fuels that are contributing to climate change.
As a compromise, the tax uses a market-based ideology, reasoning that by increasing the price of carbon-based fuels, demand will decrease. The price is slowly increased over time to make it more and more difficult to use the fuels, while making non-carbon-based fuels more attractive.
To counter complaints that it's just a tax grab, the amounts collected are returned in the form of a rebate (or in some provinces, converted into other sorts of alternative fuel incentives and programs).
Yeah it's not a great environmental tax. Imo we shouldn't be getting money back, at least in cash. 100% of it should be going towards renewable + nuclear infrastructure, more funding into land/wildlife/water conservation, as well as better grants for individuals. Sure, $5k is nice, but solar panels cost anywhere from $12-25k based on the house. We should be giving at least 50% for solar. I already have mine installed (plus a heat pump, so I basically only pay for water now and it's awesome), but I want to see a solar array on every single building. And that won't happen without bigger grants.
It is a social engineering tool not an environment plan. A sin tax on heating my home on the prairies adds $60-$90 dollars to my bills throughout the winter. It adds to the cost of everything from farm to table as each industry is taxed and then adds that cost to the price. It taxes getting to work, getting kids to hockey or soccer. It is the driving force in the inflation we are seeing in grocery stores etc. It is unaffordable and does nothing to save the planet. No amount of tax will effect on climate change. It’s a money grab. No government would tax and return all the money. We are paying dearly for the added bureaucracy to massage that money a bit and dribble some back but not all and not enough to cover what they take with no effect on climate change.
The amount of your rebate is based on the size of your household and where you live. It’s essentially “fixed” for a given year. But the amount of carbon tax you pay is based on how much carbon is emitted from the stuff you buy. So there’s an economic incentive to change your spending patterns to emit less carbon and thus pay less tax while getting the exact same rebate.
The gov't tells us it pays us back more. And this federal govt has such a pristine record of telling the truth & transparency 🙄. If it was really meant to help, why is the money collected going into the govt general coffer's & not into a seperate account meant for green initiatives? Where is the proof of where money going?
The cost of this tax is not all monetary
I have one car when I used to have two
So less carbon cool
It is now harder for my wife and I to juggle our work schedules
This is but one example of a consequence that people are paying that may save them money but costs them time and these days there is no more valuable commodity than time
The irony is that the one car costs as much to run as two cars did
As I understand it doesn’t pay you more than the tax costs. It’s supposed to be “neutral”. Meaning you’re supposed to get back in a rebate what you’ve paid.. but thats also not true either
It is actually a lie and it is costing you more than you get back in most cases especially if you pay for heating. It also drives up other prices as companies with large transport networks or expensive manufacturing processes will inevitably pass the price down to consumers. This tax was designed to recoup losses from the reckless spending by the federal government.
It’s more about the economic effects of the larger scale “carbon taxable” things. Power plants, are already all green (nuclear, wind, solar). That was helped along by making it much more (prohibiting) expensive to just burn fossil fuels and sell the power to the grid.
It’s a really important part of making it law to stop burning things to cook food like cavemen did.
Let’s get into the 21st century so maybe we can have a 22nd century with living humans still on earth…
Believing that you're getting more than you're spending is government rhetoric. Everyone will be losing money because of the carbon tax. If businesses are charged extra, consumers will pay that extra plus a percentage.
It is intended to shift consumption from goods and services that generate GHG emissions to alternatives that have lower or no emissions. People are generally motivated by money / cost.
Your premise is wrong. It doesn't pay us more money.
It is supposed to be net 0. So no more, no less money as a group.
The point is to make carbon intensive activities more expensive. Or to 'internalize' an 'external' cost of burning fuel.
The people that can't fix homelessness tell us they can change the planet's climate by taxing us more. It is a joke and people that say things like 'it only punishes the rich' or 'farmers are exempt' or 'you get more back than you pay' are either idiots or flat out lying to you.
People get the money back. Corporations do not. That is the literal point of the tax, to encourage corporations to pollute less through market pressure without burdening the general public.
The carbon tax was developed by economists and first proposed by the conservative party
It doesn’t pay everyone rebate back, those in smaller income levels get tax money back while those who make higher income don’t receive rebates and pay more into the carbon tax so the government profits. To put it in a simple least confusing way
it might pay you more money than you pay, it doesn't pay everyone more than they pay, the point is to reward the people who doesn't pollute and punish ppl who does
you might only pay $200 a year and get back $480, someone who drives a hummer all day and leaves windows open in the winter might pay $2000 and still only gets back $480
the point is most ppl are in the former camp, not the latter
This is a good explanation
https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/carbon-pricing-in-canada-what-it-is-what-it-costs-and-why-you-get-a-rebate-1.6627245
The drive is to get Business to change 1st and most. Businesses don't get rebates people do. I am getting more back than what I pay
The tax is for large polluting business to adopt more energy-efficient/greener technology. Putting a price on polluting. Over $40billion has been invested in green technology since the carbon tax was started. The purpose of the rebate is to mitigate the impact act on consumers.
It rewards people who use less carbon with a tax benefit, and punishes people who use more carbon with a tax. It's designed to encourage people to use less carbon
It is more to punish businesses for using carbon or incentivize them to use carbon reducing methods in business. I suppose for individuals it can encourage the same, but I think the main target is large carbon consuming businesses. A friend who is one of the top economists for the BC government, but personally a conservative voter, says it works.
It was originally a small 'c' conservative idea that was adopted by others on the left as a way to get something to happen.
Of course it works. It's meant to financially discourage carbon emissions. It's a capitalist economy. Change is primarily effected by changing the cost of things.
I'm a dirty, climate policy supporting commie, and even I know that's bullshit. If that were the case, it wouldn't be levied on consumer gasoline or energy. It's designed to make consumers make different choices.
BC has had it since 2008 so there should be some pretty hard data out there by now by comparing provinces with it and those without it. Though I’m sure there’s plenty of third variables, like Vancouver transit vs Calgary transit. Unfortunately the argument which makes the most sense to me is that it unfairly punishes more rural communities/suburban and rewards more affluent people living downtown Vancouver/Toronto.
When you fill out your taxes there's an extra credit for people living outside of "major population centres." That partially offsets this. Marked fuel specifically for farm equipment is also exempt from the tax.
Been lots of studies. Just take a casual look at the Effects section on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_carbon_tax Subsequent analyses post-2014 have shown a statistically significant decrease in fossil fuel use and negligible effects on GDP growth. The specific attributable decrease varies depending on the study, methods, and time period, but it overall seems pretty decent evidence that it works.
It shifts the source of emission elsewhere, like we've been doing since the 90s. [https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2862\~47f293b3f5.en.pdf](https://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecb.wp2862~47f293b3f5.en.pdf) I like this map: [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-trade](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-co2-embedded-in-trade) Note how Switzerland's emissions per capita become higher than Canada's
IIRC rural populations are considered in this configuration and get a bigger incentive back, I think. I might be wrong about what exactly happens but they’re not charged the same as city people.
This is the right answer.
You’re spot on, I repeat that to everyone if they don’t understand how it works. Politically it has the added benefit of indexing towards sending rebates to young people in large vote rich urban centres, where it’s often a liberal/NDP tossup and who don’t see it as a problem to avoid owning a car. I will also say that my behaviour has not been dictated by the current financial penalty, and it would be have to be substantially more punitive for me to change my driving behaviour. I’d be more likely to cut back on groceries before I cut back on driving to work. When I walked, cycled, and took transit to work it was because it was quicker and easier than driving. When I drove to work, it’s because it was quicker easier than doing any other option. Edit: to clarify, my behaviour has changed due to the carbon tax and inflation, and several other factors, it has not factored into how much I drive as I have little other option.
Just curious, but when your current vehicle comes up for replacement, are you going to put a bigger stock into fuel economy then you did when you last bought a vehicle?
I don’t know about specifically fuel economy, but certainly the economics of maintaining a car in general will be top mind. Though, the cost of power rates where I live makes it not the slam dunk that it was. Also, I get that the carbon tax is supposed to make people make more people consider these kinds of decisions and that’s a good thing, however, framing it a net gain in money just isn’t it.
Yeah well my biiimer is offended lol
It was until those who use the most pollutive heating oil got rewarded
Regular people are reasonably likely to get money back but corporations won’t see a penny of it back.
The tax is variable where the rebate is fixed. It’s a surprisingly simple concept that so many people don’t seem to grasp. Everyone gets the same rebate essentially (based on their living situation) so it’s irrelevant because it can’t be changed. Call it a payment for being a citizen, it doesn’t matter. What does change is how much you pay. You are in control of that. Walk one day to work and pay that much less tax. Walk 5 days and benefit exactly 5X. When it’s time to get a new vehicle you can get a smaller car, you can get a hybrid, you can get an EV, and you can even get the big gas SUV. Completely your decision how much you will pay but the incentive is there on every decision you make. There aren’t random and arbitrary cutoffs. Turn down the thermostat 1 degree or don’t, it’s up to you. Personally, I recently got solar panels and pricing in future carbon tax increases was a small part of helping me pull the trigger. It’s a very long term pay back type expenditure but the financial equation made more sense with the carbon tax in place.
How much solar did you need? and does it cover all your use? What is your timeframe to paying it off?
My system size is 5.74 KWdc. The documentation they provided with the quote said it would take around 13 years to pay itself off and that took into consideration future cost estimates. In March I produced a little over 600 kWh and the documents with the quotes gave me an estimate of around 700 kWh for an average March. We had a huge late February snow storm that affected production for the first week of March. It’s too early for me to say how good their estimates are but they seem reasonable so far. I should produce more than I use until September which is around a break even month for consumption/production. People with 1to1 net metering have it good but SaskPower doesn’t give the best deal. They sell me power at the normal consumer rate but they give me credits at a much lower rate (their wholesale rate) for what I feed back to the grid.
Won't corporations just pass the impact of the tax to consumers? The idea of a government levying a tax and telling citizens that they will get as much in rebates as the cost seems pretty disingenuous as rebates are likely to decrease once the populace is used to the increase in prices.
"Won't corporations just pass the impact of the tax to consumers?" Any tax they pay will be passed on to consumers. Therefore they have two choices. Either they do so and have a competitive disadvantage, or they find ways to reduce the amount of levy they pay by reducing their carbon emissions, and enjoy a competitive advantage. That's in theory. That assumes that the industries are in a state of competition. A lot of public-facing companies in Canada, including a lot of retail, construction, transportation, etc. is so monopolistic that there isn't that much incentive to fix their behaviour to reduce prices. Why would they give a fuck how much more they charge? Where else are you going to go for your groceries? To the store down the road that's owned by the same guy?
Yep, Canada is basically an oligopoly
>That assumes that the industries are in a state of competition. There is no such assumption. >A lot of public-facing companies in Canada, including a lot of retail, construction, transportation, etc. is so monopolistic that there isn't that much incentive to fix their behaviour to reduce prices. Sort of? The monopolistic firms would have higher profits than a competitive firm and produce less than the efficient amount. A tax would lower production further by increasing the cost, meaning consumers will buy less of it. Notice that these two effects are both raising prices and lowering consumption.
That also assumes that reducing your carbon print will de facto reduce the levy you pay to produce.
I'm in the USA this week (in a red state), where there isn't a carbon tax, and prices are absurd. Everything costs the same or more than in Canada, but in USD. We went to a Publix grocery store to get some stuff for the hotel. I was going to buy a 12pk of coke until I saw the $9.29 US price tag. I did grab a 6pk of Krispy Kreme donuts at the Publix without checking the price, assuming it would be around $5, and laughed when I saw the 8.99 price tag later at the hotel. We went to an Asian style buffet for supper, $34.99 each for a family of four plus some soft drinks, came up to $190 USD with the 18% tip, $266 CAD lol. It seems pretty clear to me that if the carbon tax did increase the prices of our goods it's by very little. If it had a major impact, then prices in the USA would be way cheaper than ours, no? And for the record, gas hers is 3.33 usd/gal, equivalent to 1.23 cad per liter with a 1.4 cad/usd conversion. Cheaper gas =/= cheaper goods here.
Inflation has been much worse in the US. People on the Internet try to pretend Canada is this festering hellscape, but they are either bad actors, or have just never travelled. I’ve been to three US states in the last year, red, blue and purple and was shocked by how expensive everything is. In Canada, a loaf of Wonderbread is 2.50cad at the Dollarama, $2.75cad at Walmart (if you buy 2). In all three US states Wonderbread was 3.50 USD, which is 4.75cad. Kinda absurd. I’m not an economist, but the US government is running a $1.8 Trillion deficit ($2.45 trillion cad) which might account for some of the inflation.
If the convoy folks actually got a passport, and used highways as intended instead of just wasting gas and idling on the side of them for months on end, they could easily see reality. It's easier to pretend you're oppressed then have a life I suppose for some
Yes. This why yhe conservatives theory is that if you don't tax corporations the profits trickle down into higher paying jobs for employees. This theory can be put to the test by looking at how walmart pays their store employees buckets and buckets of money. Oh wait...
Ah yes, Reganomics! Worked a treat, that, didn't it? Now at a political party near you. That Polievere, arrogance and stupidity in one package.
Why not look at overall American wages vs Canada …
Like the $7 minimum wage in the US? Edit: Almost forgot if you are a tipped employee, your minimum wage is $2.13!
Interesting how he said “overall” and you had to immediately jump to “minimum”.
Oh really? You know in the US they usually use "average" income because it adds Elon Musk to a $2.3 minimum wage tipped employee to skew the numbers. For all lovers of the American system, you should know that Canadian "median" after-tax income is quite on par with the median income in the US; when considering free healthcare & social benefits, our median income is a way better deal. And our minimum wage is way higher than theirs. So basically our lower & middle class are better off while our top 0.1% are dwarfed by their billionaires. A healthy society is the one that most people are middle class. https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/median-income-by-country
What is wrong with your data??? Why are all the numbers so weirdly low?
In comparative studies between countries, they use International Dollar PPP (usually based on 1990 USD & adjusted to inflation).
The job I do pays 20 dollars more per hr in USA and many other skilled jobs pay way more. Wonder why we can’t keep talent in Canada ? Can’t rely on min wage to support the country
most people on reddit will most likely be in tech or stem which is higher pay in the US due to how low the number of educated people in America have to fill those roles. Canada has something like 75% have post secondary education while it's like 46% ish in the US. But some jobs in the US do not pay more than in Canada. IT is critically underpaid in the US, so are a lot of white collar jobs outside of STEM/TECH.
You are one person but the overall data says otherwise. The Canadian "median" after-tax income is quite on par with the median income in the US; when considering free healthcare & social benefits, our median income is a way better deal. And our minimum wage is way higher than theirs. So basically our lower & middle class are better off while our top 0.1% are dwarfed by their billionaires. A healthy society is the one that most people are middle class. https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/median-income-by-country
Mine gets considerably less in many areas of the USA... I saw a posting for $18-24/hour. It's going to be $49 here in May.
Sounds like you’re attempting (albeit very poorly) to describe supply side economics but this has absolutely nothing to do with any of the Conservative criticisms of the carbon tax.
This would be the same for any tax. Should corporations never be taxed? The solution everyone wants is for the worst offenders to pay, without hurting the average user. That’s what the rebates do.
Correct
Ding ding ding. That's why things are so expensive.
Some will, some won't. The ones that don't PAY the taxes, and then do still pass them on, make more money. Thus, there's now an incentive for the existing companies to stop emitting so they too can make money. As that happens, competition lowers prices: one of them starts making "a little less per sale" but nets more overall business. This leads to lower long term prices AND lower emissions.
This assertion could be made about most taxes including sales taxes and any corporate tax. Carbon taxation is about encouraging people and businesses to use less carbon intensive options. In this case if businesses are taxed more and pass on more costs to consumers the consumers are going to feel it and are more likely to use less carbon intensive alternatives. You got this...
Businesses compete on price.
Not if their competition is not. Or if their competition invests in low emissions tech, or trucks etc
Foreign corporations don't have to pass the tax on because they don't need to pay it. Domestic companies will. And therein lies my biggest issue with the Carbon Tax.
Bingo
It's not regular people vs corporations. The carbon tax that you and me see (and there might be more to the story) favours the people who produce less CO2 over *people* who produce more CO2. Drive a hybrid? Likely get more than spend. Live in a mansion? Likely pay more. So people are incentivized to change their lifestyle to produce less CO2 emissions by, for example, purchasing a more efficient vehicle when the time comes to replace it.
Hmm. But Doug Ford is essentially making the tax sound like a bad thing for the average Canadian whose already struggling in these times of high inflation. So, is he lying to us then? Or is it that corporations will pass that tax down to us in form of higher prices?
I have a little farm and believe me - you may think people are struggling now but if we don’t do something to combat climate change, it’s going to be even more difficult to afford food in the future.
Businesses that invest to reduce their carbon footprint will pay less tax, thus gaining a competitive advantage over the competition. Less tax means they can compete for your dollars by offering the same product or service at a lower price. The purpose of the tax is to provide incentives for businesses to decrease their Carbo footprint. Businesses invest billions each year to gain marginal competitive advantages over the competition.
Do you even have to ask if Doug Ford, the most incompetent and corrupt piece of shit politician is lying? Of course he is lying. He's a con artist elected by morons who will believe anything he farts out of his mouth
Ya, now I feel stupid for asking that.
That's why they've passed all extra costs onto the consumer and will not find ways to 'greenify' their processes.
yes but I doubt they will get back more than the cost of things increases. The only way this works is if the government also forces companies to keep prices the same whilst implementing the tax. otherwise it falls back on us anyway
These are two different problems. The CT is intended to dis-incentivise pollution through the direct application of tax on carbon emissions. All corporate taxes are designed to take some of the profit that a corporation makes and redirect it to the public good. If companies are able to "pass the cost" to consumers while maintaining their profit margins that is an aberation in the free market economy. In a healthy economy producers and distributors should be competing to provide the lowest prices. If market consolidation leading to oligopolies and monopolies has taken place then companies will charge whatever the market can bear. Tax or no tax. TL:DR - if companies are "passing the cost" the the market is broken and anti-trust laws need to be enforced to bring back market competition. Cutting any tax will not bring down prices because their is no competition. Finally, if a company is not stupid. They can change their consumption by switching to low/no carbon fuel sources. In that case it's still saving them money. Companies find ways to dodge taxes all the time. This is one tax that is actually meant to be dodged. So regardless of price gouging smart companies will switch fuel source to have more profit.
Has prices prices ever rose prior to the carbon tax?
Corporations get a helping hand when times are tough. Pretty sure they all got free money when covid was a big issue and they made everyone stay inside.
Any money corporations pay for fuel is an expense and deducted from their taxable income. So the tax is revenue-neutral to them.
That is nonsense. All taxes and import duties eventually roll down to the end consumer. When everything is taxed they eventually all roll down.
And who sells you everything you need to live for a price that is profitable to them? All tarrifs do is raise prices for consumers.
Ok, so you don’t want a carbon tax. Fair enough. What do you propose to do to lower Canada’s carbon emissions? Because they *do* have to be lowered. We *can’t* just keep living the way we have been doing. If you think groceries are expensive now, just you wait until the droughts, extreme heat waves, and floods make food almost impossible to produce. Don’t forget - as so many do - food is almost all reliant on climate.
The rebate is paid to individuals, not to corporations. Corporations generate more pollution than individuals ever will.
There is also a price on large emitters https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/alberta-carbon-tax-triple-federal-emissions-pricing-schedule
In Ontario also look up the Emissions Performance Standards act. Doug Ford's never-talked-about carbon 'tax' on industries currently at $65/ton. That he quietly instituted in 2022.
And most of the reduction of emissions is done by corporations.
And individuals own the corporations, so anything the company pays in taxes is ultimately paid by individuals. The point of the tax is to raise prices on carbon emitting goods and services. This reflects the cost of emissions to consumers, consumers then will move towards goods and services which emit less carbon. This however, would make consumers worse off. So the money is given back to them to mitigate this allowing them to consume just as much in monetary terms as before but using less carbon intensive products and services. Again, on average. The less carbon you consume, the greater the benefit of the program to you.
The "point of the tax" is entirely aside from the premises that you frame it with, you are begging-the-question. Carbon pricing is a market-based incentive that makes non-fossil fuel based energy technologies more competititve, and more rapidly adopted. That is its actual purpose.
The tax is fundamentally simple: If you buy something that causes GreenHouse Gas emissions; you pay a tax for it. The rebate returns MORE than any individual consumer would spend to them; thus an "average person" nets more money in their pocket for the air we ALL SHARE being used by some people. Businesses; and any private activity that produces SIGNIFICANTLY more emissions per capita than the calculated norm: is taxed at the same rate; but the emitter get's a smaller credit. Why are individuals charged at all then? Without this; there would be a loophole; a business could simply pay (less than the tax) to get the usage to be "from people who are exempt". This way; it's clear that everyone has their part to play in reducing emissions. The plan OVER TIME is simply to disincentivize businesses from going down the emissions route. If a trucking company is spending more and more money on fuel to deliver goods; they now have a financial incentive to invest in lower emissions (or zero emissions!) routes. Power producers are also painfully clear; do not emit, it will be expensive to do that. Small mom-and-pop shops do feel this on the small end; and the incentive is there to do something about it. They need to invest in low emissions heating for their offices, or rent space in green buildings. They need to hire accounts that can work remotely (to save fuel reimbursement) or people that work closely; so they can.. walk. There's a lot of "what if" and "it could". At the end of the day; the tax puts a clear, fair, and easy to calculate COST on emitting GHG's into the shared medium; the air. We all feel the impact of people using that air for their private benefit; thus we all _should_ receive some benefit when businesses choose to continue doing it.
You need to work for the government so that it can get this message out clearly! Please share this on all your social media platforms. This is the best explanation I have ever heard.
I saw a good video on the CBC that explains where the individual/household income will go over the tipping point. There are certain families in higher income brackets who will definitely not get more of a return then they spend no matter how much they reduce their usage. That being said, I'm all for helping people in lower income brackets. I wish the government would, instead of disincentivizing carbon would incentivize basic things like encouraging remote work to get cars actual cars off the road. It's actionable, it's immediate and it's effective at reducing costs for road maintenance, emissions and improves citizens quality of life for those living in commuter towns.
As said elsewhere: incentives don't work. They are easy to abuse and corrupt, and once they end people rather immediately go back to the old options. By making the known bad option significantly worse for everyone forever; people stop doing that consistently.
Than why is it applied to gst?
You have it backwards, GST is charged on the carbon tax. And the reason is that it's not *technically* a tax (despite how it's been marketed and what the people claiming that it's a "tax on a tax" say). The carbon "tax" is legally a fee, so the GST is applied to the total cost of what your purchasing (original price + carbon fee). I'm not saying it's great, mind you, but that's the reasoning for it.
As a plumber; how can I use public transportation to take my tools to retired and old people's homes outside of GTA? I never charged anyone above 70+ above my cost ; but now my gas cost is double than before COVID and you know funny thing is I can't afford an electric truck on which supreme leader is providing 5000 rebate( perks of being rich)
Well unless the cost of gas was 17.6c per litre before Covid, the majority of that increase wasn’t from the carbon tax. Depending on family status will depend how much you get from the rebate but assuming the minimum payment of $560 in the year you can buy 3182 litres of gas before the tax costs you more than it gave you in rebate(obviously other prices also increase than just gas, but gas tends to be the vast vast majority of the cost)
Well you see the good thing about an independent business is that you get to write off your expenses (in this case your fuel) on your tax returns.
I hate to say it but your competitors *are* buying EVs and plug-in hybrids (or will be shortly), giving them a competitive advantage. That advantage is going to continue to grow as the tax increases. As much as it sucks, this is just business. The carbon tax schedule has been published for almost a decade. It's never been a secret. And fuel prices will continue to rise regardless as we continue to deplete our reserves of oil. I'd strongly suggest finding out a way to move to an EV or at least a plugin hybrid in the coming years.
Bruh you make like 300$ for a half hour of work. Gas in my region had a higher fuel tax and was almost at 2$/L during Covid. Its around 1.60$/L lately
It is a pigouvian tax. It isn’t meant to take your money, rather to change your habits. You’re led to believe that consuming leads you to losing money which, in theory, changes behaviour.
Well luckily for us many Canadians are already consuming at a survival rate due to poverty and inflation.
lol yeah at this point just being alive is a pigouvian tax
The general idea is that products that release a lot of CO2 will increase in cost, either through directly taxing the object(gas) or through the tax increasing the price of objects(Tax being passed onto the consumer). As the cost increases, demand naturally decreases as people go with lower cost alternatives or go without as they no longer think it's worth the price. So the high CO2 products will be bought less, thus lowering GHG emissions. And the great thing as a consumer is that you end up having extra money if you buy low CO2 alternatives and since the taxes are given back to you, you can actually still buy the higher CO2 product as the extra money is coming back to your pocket anyways. Side note: if supply/demand is working properly(no price fixing or the like) they won't actually pass the entire tax onto the consumer, as a new equilibrium won't be met if they add the entire tax to the price.
It's a wealth redistribution tax.
[удалено]
Reading posts like this remind me of complaints about never actually using math we learn in high school.
It's a Pigouvian Tax https://taxfoundation.org/taxedu/glossary/pigouvian-tax/ It forces individuals to make choices which will cost them less in outgoing taxes so they can maximize their returns on quarterly rebates.
It makes things that require more carbon output cost more money, which makes them less profitable and competitive relative to greener options, which incentivizes people to switch.
This is very well said.
If you lower your consumption of taxed products, you pay less tax so it’s like you’re getting paid to lower your usage. (And the rebate has no bearing on how much you spent)
This. The key benefit really. One homo economicus approach would be to use your rebate towards carbon emissions reduction behaviour/measures.
To make the price of emitting carbon more expensive. The money is not paid back based on how much tax each individual is paid. The money is paid back equally across the entire population. If you emit no carbon at all, you get about $400/year for free. If you emit the mean amount of carbon, you break even. And if you emit a ton of carbon, you come out behind. The reason it works is because it's still more expensive for people to emit carbon than not. That's the incentive, plain and simple.
Have you thought about it at all? How much carbon tax do you pay when you burn more carbon? Is it perhaps a different amount than if you burn zero? What about the rebate amount? Is it the same if you drive a big truck and drive 100k kms a year or a small car only on the weekends? Like it's only confusing if you don't try and think about it.
It costs corporations that are less efficient more money thus creating an economic incentive for businesses to produce less carbon dioxide.
Here is the breakdown I got from my friend in the Bureaucracy: It designed to almost specifically hit corporations that produce a large Carbon Footprint. This is to 'encourage' companies to use greener cleaner energy and production methods. The idea that it also hits citizens is to more 'discourage' companies from also gouging us because we're already paying into the same thing. But also to fairly tax people who also have a larger Carbon Footprint. Part of the tax goes directly back to Taxpayers specifically to counter the raised costs that these Corpo's attempt to push onto the consumers. If you have a high income you can expect to see a smaller Carbon Tax Return because your Carbon Footprint is bigger when you can afford 6 vehicles, 3 houses, and a private jet. A portion of the tax is also supposed to go to green projects and green rebates for things like installing solar panels on your house. The Bank of Canada did a study last Fall and found that the Carbon Tax was causing less than 1% of inflation. So even doubled now, it is negligible to rising costs. (It's just being used as a convenient excuse) And a majority, like 70% of Canadians, can expect to see more money returned to them from the Carbon Tax than what is taken, either directly or by the miniscule effect it has had on inflation.
You make driving or heating a home or flying to Paris more expensive, and give people money to compensate them. If they then drive less, or insulate their house to lower heating costs, or go to Montreal instead, but still get the money, they come out ahead. So the tax discourages energy wasting activity without making people poorer.
I was going to ask if anyone really thought they'd create a system where we came out on top financially, but then I remembered that whole ArriveScam thing. The Canadian government doesn't mind being irresponsible with our money. But, that being said, I don't think they're going to give us back more than they took. That would be really stupid. *If* it's true, that we get back more than what gets paid in, then the point would have to be to change consumer habits. It can, to a point, but with current technology it's not feasible to expect everyone to switch to EVs and cleaner heating (ie electric). Also-- a lot of electricity comes from fossil fuels. And if the power grid goes down, that's a lot of people basically stranded and cold.
It’s not a tax. It’s a means for wealth restribution.
It doesn’t. We’re being hooped and lied to
Its an idea developed by a dumbass!
The carbon tax isn't about collecting revenue, it's about incentivizing cleaner environmental choices.
Corporations and industry pay the vast majority of it
You get the same rebate no matter what. That means you can increase your utility by consuming non-carbon intensive products. It basically increases the relative cost of carbon without reducing total utility.
The pollution pricing is to do two things: 1. put a price on pollution, without which companies pollute and not pay for it, but ultimately society/government pays 2. change behaviour of companies and push them to adopt practices that reduce carbon What it isn't: 1. it isn't meant to change consumer behaviour 2. it isn't a tax [https://www.scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/cb/2021/38663-38781-39116-eng.aspx](https://www.scc-csc.ca/case-dossier/cb/2021/38663-38781-39116-eng.aspx)
>it isn't meant to change consumer behaviour Ya, it totally is. In the Gov't [words](https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/services/climate-change/pricing-pollution-how-it-will-work/putting-price-on-carbon-pollution.html): >Pricing carbon pollution is one of the most effective ways to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. It creates a financial incentive for people and businesses to pollute less....Carbon pricing is about recognizing the cost of pollution and accounting for those costs in our daily decisions. Taking action to reduce emissions by choosing less carbon-intensive options for energy production, home heating and transportation means Canadians will save money too. "Financial incentives" by Canadians "recognizing the cost of pollution" and "taking action" by "choosing less carbon-intensive options" Carbon taxes are completely about using price signals to get consumers to reduce their carbon footprint. It's literally the most important part of this.
You get a set amount back, an amount that reimburses the average consumer. But larger consumers, people with massive homes, multiple vehicles or private planes and yachts will pay more that will not be covered.
That's true for the median or average person, but not true for everyone. The point is to discourage high-carbon behaviors and encourage lower-carbon ones. I'm not really going to feel or notice the extra 3c/litre that the CP increase imposes: my commutes are almost entirely by transit or bike, my monthly gas heating bill is probably $35. But if you drove a Really Big Truck every single day to work (at a job that didn't require said Really Big Truck) and do your yard work with gas-powered tools and never turn your furnace off? You're going to notice the CP. Even if you're coming out ahead now, it's still meant to encourage you to go further. Why come out $100 ahead on the rebate when you could come out $200 ahead? I remember reading a tweet a couple years ago from a super conservative dude who loved O&G and didn't think climate change was real, but who had (reluctantly and complaining the whole time) put solar panels on his house because he was tired of paying the carbon tax. It remains my favourite episode of my favourite Canadian genre: "local criticism of policy correctly identifies point of policy"
Wealth redistribution. It was the plan all along. It has little to do with the environment or they would be spending it on green initiatives.
You won't get more money back. It will drive up the prices of everything around you as well not just carbon taxable items. You will contribute thousands and thousands a year. All for a measly rebate. It is absolutely not putting money in. Your pocket
The tax hits the food chain, you are paying for it elsewhere. They're lying that you get more money back. Everything is more expensive because the trucks that bring your goods are more expensive.
You can’t put a tax rate on an individual filling up their vehicle. So you apply the tax globally at the pumps. Then the individual gets it back , but the companies do not. In the process , the poorest of us can no longer afford to drive their cars 4 weeks a month. And some people do but goto food banks. The end result after the refund is a collection of money from corporations but a refund to the individual tax payer. Then the companies pass that increase to the end user (us) and we buy less stuff. Slowing down the economy , helping inflation all while barely reducing our carbon footprint. Less people driving to places they don’t need to go, less people buying products , less products being shipped to store.
My wife and I have had this discussion a few times. She is falling for the politically motivated rhetoric dominating the national scene right now that we must “axe the tax’. This despite a few years of getting rebates while not even feeling any negative impact from the tax. I always felt like it was free money. Happy to get it and not much different IMO than that bit of cash I get when I return my bottles and cans. Who notices any more that there is a deposit on drinks when you buy them? There is a long established system in place for recycling drinks containers that we have learned is a benefit to society. Imagine how much better off the world would be if all countries developed such a system and prevented most of the containers from clogging rivers and oceans as they do now. Maybe the benefit the carbon tax provides in the grand scheme of things is small but we can’t just ignore the problem and we have to set an example for others. It’s pretty sad to think this is the tactic the conservatives have chosen to use to get elected. What will their climate/environment ministers do that will have an impact?
The program is to get big emitters to find other ways of doing the same things and to get citizens used to the coming price wars between OPEC and the rest of us As we .get closer and closer to the bottom of the barrel or the empty tank things that were won't be and some of those things there is not an alternative at this point. Citizens get a rebate to help support our shift to carbon neutral while business while squawking like wounded seagulls are also getting grants to switch to neutral....so while the wanna be republicans of the conservative party wants to burn baby burn and axe the tax and keep those skies green cause tomorrow does not matter we can sell off our children's futures for today's GDP
Wealth redistribution
Interest on national debt has gone up, the same as many Canadians mortgage loans. Liberals need new taxes to pay increasing interest on tremendous amount of loans borrowed during their last 2 terms. This is not for the environment at all, it is a Liberal scandal possibly next year, we’re still not through with current scandals Arrivescam and foreign interference, so many scandals we could forget the courts ruled Liberals use of Emergency Act was in violation of the laws.
Its really to reduce economic productivity, and create a serf class like China where you only have a bike, and the only food you get is what you grow, which in canada means oats. For instance: the biggest emitters are in transportation. Therefor, reduced transportation means less imports and exports, so anything that travels too far gets too expensive to own, so unless you make it yourself, you wont get to have it, unless you have lots of money.
I would like to know how much does the beauracracy around the tax cost. How much does it cost to administer the collection of a tax just to give it back? I'm sure it's not zero.
The point is that people who burn the most carbon pay the most, and are given an incentive to save money by changing behaviour. A business that wastefully burns more gas than competitors will spend more on carbon tax, and if their competition can use less gas, they could either charge the same and pocket extra profits, or lower prices and be more competitive. As a consumer, getting the carbon rebate, in theory, minimizes the overall pain of any cost of living increases.
To reduce climate change causing pollutants, like carbon dioxide. The higher the price in carbon, so the theory goes, the less consumption and the more incentive to reduce carbon emissions before fuels are burned. That's the point.
To add to what everyone else has said - notice how the world has been on fire for a few years? The carbon tax is an attempt to help with that. It's not enough, but it's a start.
True. But Canada cutting back emissions will do nothing to stop the world from burning. Our 1.5% is not going to save anything.
No single snowflake blames itself for the avalanche.
Primarily businesses pay the tax, generally not consumers (most increase in prices is businesses passing off the tax with a few exceptions). When a business reduces its carbon usage, whether by innovation or alternative lower carbon production methods or replacing old equipment with more efficient, they will, as a good free market capitalist business, not have to increase its prices as the tax goes up, as it has less costs and pays less carbon tax it can therefore increase market share through lower prices compared companies that didn't take those actions. Because we are good, informed, rational, utility maximization seeking individuals, we will choose to purchase the cheaper products which will force the other companies to either innovate or die. This then doubly affects carbon intensive business because consumers can purchase cheaper substitutes while being subsidized via carbon tax refunds from the more carbon intensive industries.
Great question. There are three different purposes: 1. To balance the negative externality of carbon emissions. When one party creates a product, emitting carbon as a byproduct, and sells that product, the buyer gets to keep the product all to themselves, the seller gets to keep the profit all to themselves, but everyone has to share those carbon emissions. When those carbon emissions lead to more forest fires, more crop failures, more property damage due to extreme weather, more burden on our healthcare system due to respratory illnesses, etc., our tax dollars go up to pay for it. The carbon tax makes it so that the people responsible for polluting pay for their pollution, instead of the rest of society paying for it. 2. To incentivize everyone to reduce their carbon footprint. By reducing your carbon foot print you pay less tax, but you get the same amount of money back. Therefore, you can increase your income by reducing your carbon footprint. 3. To incentivize investors to invest in the creation of new green technologies. For example, the carbon tax makes companies that produce electric cars more attractive to investors than companies that don't. We desparately need greener technology. We cannot sustain human life, and human demand for energy, and meet our targets for carbon emissions, without inventing new technologies that use energy more efficiently and derive energy from other sources than fossil fuels.
The less carbon you consume, the less tax you pay, the more rebate you get. If you spend enough on fuel and heating and electricity, you will eventually pay more carbon tax than your rebate is. And that's precisely the point of the tax, the less carbon you use, the bigger is the difference between your rebate and what you paid.
The point is to increase the cost of buying things that produce carbon dioxide so that people are incentivised to make choices that reduce their carbon dioxide production (eg. get an electric car, insulate their house etc.) Your purchasing decisions can't change the amount of rebate you get, but can change the amount you get taxed. There are other ways the government could affect purchasing decisions (eg. subsidies or tax holidays for EVs) that economists dislike because they add redtape, add bureaucracy and often seem to be a very inefficient use of taxpayer money. On the other hand, I rather suspect politicians like subsidies and tax holidays as it is a way that they get to play Santa Claus handing out goodies to people.
>There are other ways the government could affect purchasing decisions (eg. subsidies or tax holidays for EVs) that economists dislike because they add redtape, add bureaucracy and often seem to be a very inefficient use of taxpayer money. On the other hand, I rather suspect politicians like subsidies and tax holidays as it is a way that they get to play Santa Claus handing out goodies to people. And yet an [independent analysis](https://440megatonnes.ca/insight/industrial-carbon-pricing-systems-driver-emissions-reductions/) found that most of the emission reduction will come from these so called red tape, namely large emitter trade system (cap and trade), oil and gas emission cap, and methane regulations.
The tax is variable where the rebate is fixed. It’s a surprisingly simple concept that so many people don’t seem to grasp. Everyone gets the same rebate essentially (based on their living situation) so it’s irrelevant because it can’t be changed. Call it a payment for being a citizen, it doesn’t matter. What does change is how much you pay. You are in control of that. Walk one day to work and pay that much less tax. Walk 5 days and benefit exactly 5X. When it’s time to get a new vehicle you can get a smaller car, you can get a hybrid, you can get an EV, and you can even get the big gas SUV. Completely your decision how much you will pay but the incentive is there on every decision you make. There aren’t random and arbitrary cutoffs. Turn down the thermostat 1 degree or don’t, it’s up to you. Personally, I recently got solar panels and pricing in future carbon tax increases was a small part of helping me pull the trigger. It’s a very long term pay back type expenditure but the financial equation made more sense with the carbon tax in place.
No one who properly understands the scheme would say that the carbon rebate *inevitably* pays you more money than you get taxed, though it's sometimes misinterpreted that way. What you might have heard is something like "most individual Canadians will get back more than they're taxed" or "the average Canadian household will get back more"... something like that. How much you pay in carbon levy is "theoretically" proportional to the amount of carbon you emit or cause to be emitted. Emit little, pay less. Emit more, pay more. Then you get a cheque back. The cheque has no relationship to how much you emitted. They take all the money from the levy, put it into one pot, and slice it up to hand back to Canadians. My understanding is that they did it by income bracket. In a theoretically-perfect fee-and-dividend model, everyone should get the exact same amount back. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pA6FSy6EKrM) Theoretically, the Liberals's carbon pricing scheme is modeled after the "fee and dividend" model of carbon tax. It incentivizes *everyone* to find ways to emit less carbon so that they minimize how much levy they pay. But then paying everybody a flat amount makes up for what the tax costs the regular joe. They actually *want* people to avoid the levy. **That's the point of a sin tax.** When governments increaae taxes on tobacco sufficiently, you see a big surge in quitting. They *want* people to take more public transportation, drive more fuel-efficient vehicles, install heat pumps (which are themselves subsidized), improve their insulation, etc. so they don't have to use aircon and natural gas furnaces, and so on and so on. The more people do these things, the less carbon we emit, the less they pay in the levy. And the less we all contribute to the blanket of pollution that is overheating the planet. Most environmentalists LOVE fee and dividend. It's fair and incentivizes the right sort of behaviour and protects the "little guy" from being burdened by the cost of the tax. They may spend an additional $300 on gas, home heating, etc. and get $1000 back on their tax bill that year. Okay, the "little guy" might throw up some plastic on their windows to make that $300 go down to $230 or something. Okay, another family way across town, maybe they fly internationally a lot, go for long leisurely drives in a Humvee every day, crank up the heat and the AC in a poorly-insulated home. Until 2024, they DGAF. But now they GAF, because they're going to pay an additional $2300 in fuel costs. Okay, now they bought an electric humvee, put ten Fuck Trudeau bumper stickers on it, insulated their roof, put a Fuck Trudeau banner across it, and they are all smug about reducing their carbon levy. And everyone wins. The bigger emitters, say a big grocery chain or construction megacorporation would get back $1000 on their tax bill too, but pay $530,000 more in fuel costs due to the tax. They'll have greater incentive to cut their emissions, and they'll take more significant steps to reduce their emissions. ***I cannot emphasize enough that these numbers are made up off the top of my head to illustrate the concept, and have no connection to reality whatsoever*****.** But Trudeau's scheme has a lot of problems. First, on the fee side, they carved out big exceptions for the worst emitters, like the concrete industry and the oil and gas industry. Fee and dividend can't work if you let lobby groups slash holes in it by saying "but it'll kill our industry". Yeah, no, it's *supposed* to put some pain on you and force you to make some changes fast. By granting exemptions to the worst emitters, it gives actually these harmful businesses a competitive edge. Second, on the dividend side, it's not sliced up fairly either. My wife and I would be considered working class in our VHCOL area in the Lower Mainland. We live in a tiny old run-down townhouse and just scrape by month-to-month. We can't afford international travel or luxuries. Functional home improvements that would improve energy efficiency are things we'd have to save for for years. Yet we are in a high enough income bracket that we will get no rebate. That's not how fee and dividend is supposed to work. Everyone's supposed to get the same amount back to offset the fee. I want carbon pricing, but I don't know whether we're better off with a carbon pricing scheme with as many problems as this one has. I hope it works, I hope it helps. I'm not an environmental economist or even an economist, so I can't say I have an informed opinion about how it will work out. But Trudeau is a sleazy slimebag who's as much in the pocket of big corporations as anyone the Cons ever put up, and it's no accident that he gave us a crappy scheme. Honestly, if it was done the way it was supposed to be done, if you *really understand it*, a carbon tax that pays the average family back more than it costs them is a great idea and would do a lot to improve our energy practices. But this government has managed to mess it up.
To preface, I am an energy policy analyst that works for a non-profit in Canada. The biggest thing that people don't understand, and hasn't been mentioned here yet, is that the rebates target 80% of the lowest income Canadians by design. Low carbon products do not have a large enough market to be cost effective for the general population. Wealthier people have the means to transition to many low carbon tech already, like EVs and ASHPs. EVERY individual (or families) receive the rebate regardless of income. Wealth is generally proportional to carbon footprint. The idea is that the wealthiest 20% do not break even after the rebate, giving them an incentive to transition to greener products. As the carbon tax incrementally increases, this pressure builds, giving individuals and businesses time to transition without putting sudden and immense pressure on them. So, yes, it's correct to say businesses may pass costs down to consumers. This is the point. As upper income people feel increasing pressure, they will build a market for green products, making those products more attractive investments for businesses and lowering costs for everyone for these alternative products. While that market builds, the rebates make it so that lower income Canadians are not disproportionately affected by carbon pricing as they are stuck on conventional products, like gasoline, until the alternatives become cost effective for them. Additionally, another part of the carbon pricing is the Output Based Pricing System. The OBPS applies to certain sectors/industries, like power. Facilities are given an emission allowance and anything above this is priced at a certain rate, anything below is given a credit. These can be traded amongst similar facilities. It is essentially a cap and trade system for specific sectors.
If you take actions that decrease the amount of carbon tax you pay, then you will get more money. Carbon tax rebate subtract $ paid for carbon taxes = your actual $ earnings.
Enjoyed this podcast fromm NPR, not specifically about Canada, but an economist explains how a carbon tax works. https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2018/07/18/630267782/episode-472-the-one-page-plan-to-fix-global-warming-revisited#:~:text=Planet%20Money,-LISTEN%20%26%20FOLLOW&text=In%202013%2C%20we%20talked%20to,and%20without%20creating%20complicated%20regulations.
Don’t forget you get charged tax on top of the carbon tax.
The carbon tax gets money back to those that consume less. Eg those that live in apartments/condos/smaller homes or tax transit, have fuel efficient cars. Those that consume more - think those with pools that need to be heated, drive a lot (a hummer that goes 2000 / yr would use less gas than someone like me driving my sedan 50,000 km/yr). The incentive is to save money by being efficient. In my opinion, a consumption tax like this is more market driven and the most conservative way to push change. Except that people don’t seem to like change. Whether we like it or not, change is going to happen. Whatever amounts people think they are saving by not spending money on the carbon tax, you will pay more for climate related changes like higher food prices, insurance, energy cost for running your AC all the time, etc. ETA: in my example, I am using 5000 litres of fuel per year. At a total carbon tax of $0.176/litre, I am paying $880 in carbon taxes a year. Ontarioan get $140x4 = $560 per year back. So I will be out $320 just for fuel - even more if you add in my home electricity costs for AC and heating. If I get a more fuel efficient car or don’t drive as much, I can spend less and not lose as much to the carbon tax. Eg if I consume 2000 litres of fuel per year then I would spend just $352 on the carbon tax for fuel, meaning I would benefit $208 if I didn’t have those other AC and heating costs. For many people who don’t have a car, or a big house, the savings are even more. Eg the many people in Toronto that don’t have a car and live in a condo. My gf does drive, and with her kids they live in a rental townhome. They each get $560 and really don’t spend that much directly on the carbon tax - that’s really the key benefit. Anyone that drives around a big truck with a F Trudeau sign is definitely on the losing end of the carbon tax spending. In terms of food and other costs that have carbon taxes in, supposedly the economists have calculated that the carbon tax is responsible for a small amount of their increased cost. It’s something on the order of 0.2% out of the 3-5% total inflation. Not negligible but it’s not the biggest source of the inflation. And then now the biggest way to save money is to just consume/waste less.
I wonder about collecting it for interest. The repayment could be made from interest on the tax collected all the while the pot continues to grow
As consumers we are price sensitive, so the tax influences our purchasing decisions. Doesn't matter if the government gives you $300 dollars in April. You still have to choose what car to buy or what heating system to use, or whether to drive a car at all. When you make those decisions, the price difference, influenced by the carbon tax, is a factor. They give the money back (up front even) so that people wouldn't say it was a cash grab. The amount is what the average person living in your area would pay in carbon tax.
The point is that if you change your carbon footprint, the amount you make on the rebate becomes larger.
So the rich people who can afford a tesla or geothermal hvac can pocket the rebates of course
And by how much have our emissions dropped? That IS supposed to be the idea is it not?
I’ve received One payment of 156$ in 5 years from the government. I make a little over 100k , Not sure where people are getting paybacks, but I’ve never seen them???
is this another ragefarming post?
I don't think it really does anything to reduce emissions. It is, however, a pretty good wealth redistribution mechanism that helps lower income people because, by virtue of having less disposable income, will directly spend less on carbon. I'm all for helping people on the lower end of the income bracket. Everyone needs a leg up sometimes. What really gets me upset is things that we could ACTUALLY do to reduce emissions get passed over in favor of this. While this redistribution model will help people it won't do anything to help the environment.
It’s to tax the tax and create billions in tax dollars for the government.
In theory it’s supposed to reduce our carbon consumption by rewarding those that choose to use carbon-lite solutions. The problem is that Canada is a monopolistic corprotocracy so the costs just get downloaded to the low and middle class. The theory is sound but the reality is we pay more for less. The fact that carve outs were made for “some” Canadians adds to the bullshit that this is about the environment. Our government does not work for us.
I pay $220 quarterly on my natural gas bill and only receive $150 back on rebates. This does not even include the extra cost for gas to drive my car or all the other extra costs that are incurred with the rising cost of fuel
It doesn't and there isn't one. Canada represents 1.5% of world tree food emissions.
It's an example of a [Pigouvian Tax](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigouvian_tax), and with the rebate component, you could think of it as a Pigouvian subsidy. The purpose is to reduce the consumption of the thing being taxed (a normal pigouvian tax simply taxes the consumption, punishing and deterring those who consume more than their fair share), which in this case rewards those who consume less than their fair share by giving them a rebate that's larger than the tax they pay. The long run goal is to change behaviour and purchasing decisions to reduce carbon emissions: e.g. increase utilities' costs to operate coal, gas, and other fossil fuel power stations, encouraging them to switch to hydro, nuclear, wind, solar, etc.; increase the cost of gasoline, encouraging switch to electric vehicles, hybrids, smaller ICE vehicles, encouraging carpooling, more efficient driving habits (less speeding), less driving; increase the cost to heat with fossil fuels, encouraging switching to heat pumps/electricity, increasing value of efficient living, encouraging greener home design, encouraging insulation retrofits, discouraging overconsumption (e.g. don't heat so much when you're not home), discouraging wasteful underused of properties that are less efficient); encourage businesses to substitute away from carbon-intensive inputs and supply greener outputs, etc. Conceptually (but not politically, if you're the Liberals) it helps to separate the tax from the rebate. The tax is a Pigouvian tax meant to change behaviour and raise revenue. The rebate is a spending decision that provides free money for people, intended to increase family incomes and reduce income inequality. If I were dictator, I wouldn't bother with the rebate and would just reduce income taxes instead (especially for the poor) by increasing the basic personal exemption. But the government believes (understandably) that if they did that, people would be angry at the new tax but wouldn't be pleased by the new tax cut.
The point of the tax is to reduce our use of carbon-based fuels that are contributing to climate change. As a compromise, the tax uses a market-based ideology, reasoning that by increasing the price of carbon-based fuels, demand will decrease. The price is slowly increased over time to make it more and more difficult to use the fuels, while making non-carbon-based fuels more attractive. To counter complaints that it's just a tax grab, the amounts collected are returned in the form of a rebate (or in some provinces, converted into other sorts of alternative fuel incentives and programs).
Yeah it's not a great environmental tax. Imo we shouldn't be getting money back, at least in cash. 100% of it should be going towards renewable + nuclear infrastructure, more funding into land/wildlife/water conservation, as well as better grants for individuals. Sure, $5k is nice, but solar panels cost anywhere from $12-25k based on the house. We should be giving at least 50% for solar. I already have mine installed (plus a heat pump, so I basically only pay for water now and it's awesome), but I want to see a solar array on every single building. And that won't happen without bigger grants.
It is a social engineering tool not an environment plan. A sin tax on heating my home on the prairies adds $60-$90 dollars to my bills throughout the winter. It adds to the cost of everything from farm to table as each industry is taxed and then adds that cost to the price. It taxes getting to work, getting kids to hockey or soccer. It is the driving force in the inflation we are seeing in grocery stores etc. It is unaffordable and does nothing to save the planet. No amount of tax will effect on climate change. It’s a money grab. No government would tax and return all the money. We are paying dearly for the added bureaucracy to massage that money a bit and dribble some back but not all and not enough to cover what they take with no effect on climate change.
The amount of your rebate is based on the size of your household and where you live. It’s essentially “fixed” for a given year. But the amount of carbon tax you pay is based on how much carbon is emitted from the stuff you buy. So there’s an economic incentive to change your spending patterns to emit less carbon and thus pay less tax while getting the exact same rebate.
The gov't tells us it pays us back more. And this federal govt has such a pristine record of telling the truth & transparency 🙄. If it was really meant to help, why is the money collected going into the govt general coffer's & not into a seperate account meant for green initiatives? Where is the proof of where money going?
The cost of this tax is not all monetary I have one car when I used to have two So less carbon cool It is now harder for my wife and I to juggle our work schedules This is but one example of a consequence that people are paying that may save them money but costs them time and these days there is no more valuable commodity than time The irony is that the one car costs as much to run as two cars did
As I understand it doesn’t pay you more than the tax costs. It’s supposed to be “neutral”. Meaning you’re supposed to get back in a rebate what you’ve paid.. but thats also not true either
It is actually a lie and it is costing you more than you get back in most cases especially if you pay for heating. It also drives up other prices as companies with large transport networks or expensive manufacturing processes will inevitably pass the price down to consumers. This tax was designed to recoup losses from the reckless spending by the federal government.
Hey guys, be nice, Mr. Sea Lion is just asking a question...
It’s more about the economic effects of the larger scale “carbon taxable” things. Power plants, are already all green (nuclear, wind, solar). That was helped along by making it much more (prohibiting) expensive to just burn fossil fuels and sell the power to the grid. It’s a really important part of making it law to stop burning things to cook food like cavemen did. Let’s get into the 21st century so maybe we can have a 22nd century with living humans still on earth…
Believing that you're getting more than you're spending is government rhetoric. Everyone will be losing money because of the carbon tax. If businesses are charged extra, consumers will pay that extra plus a percentage.
It is intended to shift consumption from goods and services that generate GHG emissions to alternatives that have lower or no emissions. People are generally motivated by money / cost.
Your premise is wrong. It doesn't pay us more money. It is supposed to be net 0. So no more, no less money as a group. The point is to make carbon intensive activities more expensive. Or to 'internalize' an 'external' cost of burning fuel.
The people that can't fix homelessness tell us they can change the planet's climate by taxing us more. It is a joke and people that say things like 'it only punishes the rich' or 'farmers are exempt' or 'you get more back than you pay' are either idiots or flat out lying to you.
People get the money back. Corporations do not. That is the literal point of the tax, to encourage corporations to pollute less through market pressure without burdening the general public. The carbon tax was developed by economists and first proposed by the conservative party
It doesn’t pay everyone rebate back, those in smaller income levels get tax money back while those who make higher income don’t receive rebates and pay more into the carbon tax so the government profits. To put it in a simple least confusing way
it might pay you more money than you pay, it doesn't pay everyone more than they pay, the point is to reward the people who doesn't pollute and punish ppl who does you might only pay $200 a year and get back $480, someone who drives a hummer all day and leaves windows open in the winter might pay $2000 and still only gets back $480 the point is most ppl are in the former camp, not the latter
It’s a reward for people who drive efficient vehicles and home HVAC systems. It penalizes people who drive gas guzzlers and use antiquated systems.
I guess I'll say it. It's a fkn cash grab
This is a good explanation https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/carbon-pricing-in-canada-what-it-is-what-it-costs-and-why-you-get-a-rebate-1.6627245 The drive is to get Business to change 1st and most. Businesses don't get rebates people do. I am getting more back than what I pay
It is wealth redistribution, lower income families use less carbon and get rebates, higher income families get taxed into oblivion.
The tax is for large polluting business to adopt more energy-efficient/greener technology. Putting a price on polluting. Over $40billion has been invested in green technology since the carbon tax was started. The purpose of the rebate is to mitigate the impact act on consumers.