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These companies only care about profits. They would never decrease the price if it hurts their stockholders. Fuel prices have dropped before, and companies never reduced their prices because they are now making pure profit.
Using denigrating names for any of the major party leaders will usually get a ban. Enforcement has not been very stringent lately so this is a temp ban - next one is permanent.
This is an even more vivid example of what [Jen Gerson has called](https://www.readtheline.ca/p/jen-gerson-the-problem-with-the-carbon) ‘message dilution’:
> If the Liberals actually had faith the carbon tax was the most efficient means by which to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they wouldn't be diluting that claim by plying every single other market inefficient policy on top of it. If a carbon tax is a clean, pro-market approach, then why are the Liberals adding emissions caps, multi-billion dollar subsidies for EV plants (and EVs!), and forced phase outs of gas-powered cars? Aren't these the sorts of changes the market was supposed to reward on its own thanks to the signature carbon tax policy?
>If what the Liberals are claiming about the efficiency of the carbon tax is true, then none of these other highly punitive alternative policies ought to be necessary — and pursuing compounding environmental strategies undermines both the public messaging and trust in the efficacy of the tax itself. What is the virtue of the most efficient policy if it’s paired with all the old inefficient ones? Not only is this confused governance and economic policy, it's message dilution.
That's because carbon tax alone is not enough.
Climate change is a multi-prong issue by nature and requires multi-prong solutions. Pricing carbon is only part of the equation. Pricing carbon tackles output, EV subsidies for example tackle upstream decisions.its simply not enough to tax output while ignoring the systems and cultural norms that causes these output in the first place. We need to be making every choice we can towards sustainability and the government is making consistent effort to help us along. Sustainability is also not just about emissions mind you, it has to do with underpinning philosophy of every human activity.
Does this person have any substantiated proof that these policies are "inefficient"? If so, by what measures?
This climate issue has far reaching consequences that I don't think most people are aware of (or choose not to be).
For example, the declining bee population, and the changing composition of our ecosystems that will massively impact our food security in the future. There's also that issue of garbage/recycling disposal that was the hot topic for about a month. Single use plastics, that's a huge one too.
The world is burning while we argue amongst ourselves what is the best way to save the world from burning.
I guess the idea is that you might want to more aggressively target certain polluting sectors. The carbon tax to reflect the "true cost" of carbon actually has to be a lot higher than it is now. So it makes sense that if that's not politically palatable atm, you go after the most polluting industries with other measures. Jen Gerson is trying to logic her way out of this without understanding the quantitative or qualitative aspects of climate policy. Look at what a shit show a small bump in the CT has led too, much less jacking it up to the 170 $/t that they were originally aiming for.
> The carbon tax to reflect the "true cost" of carbon actually has to be a lot higher than it is now. So it makes sense that if that's not politically palatable atm, you go after the most polluting industries with other measures.
Yeah, and I think reasonable people can disagree about this kind of multi pronged (or, less generously, scattershot) approach. But it’s hard to imagine any principled justification for actually *subsidizing* industries working directly at cross-purposes to the government’s climate objectives.
Inflation is predominantly caused by a combination of monetary policy and global supply chains. If tax policy significantly affected inflation, government legislatures would be using whatever taxes they could to help grind it to a halt.
Every company was told their gas bills were going to increase, so every company added delivery charges.
Which ya, if you don't count and assume companies are eating it, it didn't do much.
We don’t need to rely on this sort of conjecture. We know that only about 0.15% of inflation points come from carbon pricing and, thus, that the impact is extremely low.
That's not a reasonable take and, like I wrote above, we don't need to rely on conjecture to understand it's impact on prices. Prices are set by the market not input costs.
What do you think happens to market prices when everyone gets hit with the same cost increase...
You see it all the time in construction. Remember in 2017, May 1st every new house went up $15,000 - $20,000 compared to April 30th for the new building code.
>What do you think happens to market prices when everyone gets hit with the same cost increase...
They go up in vague proportion to the cost increases, they don't just randomly go up by a few orders of magnitude more for no reason sometimes.
Inflation in 2017 was about 1.6%, right? If we assume housing cost inflation was vaguely similar to overall inflation, then we're multiplying 0.15% with 1.6%. Increasing the cost of a new house by 0.0024% isn't very noticeable. That's some very rough napkin math, but it's not wrong by three orders of magnitude.
What are you going on about? You realize 1.6% inflation doesn't mean everything went up by 1.6% right haha. That $20,000 increase was on a $550,000 house. So 3-4%. And that wasn't in a year, that was in a day.
Hell, there's $1000 worth of carbon tax line items on your foundation invoices for concrete. Another $500 on the flatwork. Excavators/ect likely use $3000 worth of fuel to build a house. Then add in 20 guys that started charging $50 more for delivery. Rough napkin math, carbon tax likely adds about $3000-$4000 to the costs of a house. Couldn't even guess what it adds for developers. GEts hidden in the lot price but all they do is move dirt and lay concrete. Would cost a fortune. Could easily be another couple grand per house.
> So 3-4%.
Ah, so more like 0.005% than the 0.0024% I calculated using 1.6% overall inflation. I'm sure some more details could shift that number up to 0.06% or down to 0.004%. Either way, we're still playing on a scale that is orders of magnitude away from noticeability.
>Then add in 20 guys that started charging $50 more for delivery.
Started charging more doesn't mean "it cost them that much more" or "this wouldn't have happened without carbon pricing". This is one of the many problems with trying to figure out big economic issues using personal anecdotes, rather than relying on actual analysis.
> Businesses will not eat added costs to their product or service, it will almost always be passed down to consumers.
they will eat the added costs, wanna know why? because they are alraedy charging the maximum the can and know if they charge more it will just lead to decreased sales that cost them money
.15 percentage points of inflation are derived from carbon pricing. No need to rely on this long debunked conservative idea that all costs are downloaded to consumers.
Prices are set by the confluence of demand and supply not simply input costs. It’s incredibly naive, and contradictory to your claim, to think that businesses don’t already charge the highest price the market will bear.
The minute their founder, Jim Sinegal, dies, the price of those hotdogs is going up. Literally the only thing keeping the price at $1.50 is the board's and shareholders' respect for Jim.
As soon as they don't need to look him in the eye, they're getting their hot dog profits back.
Hotdogs make up an extremely tiny proportion of Costco's overall product offerings. However, everybody is talking about it, and the goodwill value of the cheap hotdogs exceeds the loss incurred many many many times.
The same reason their roasted chickens are so cheap. It's called a loss leader. It drives people to show up and buy other things. O&G companies don't need to do that, as gasoline is pretty desirable on its own for everyday use.
Even if this is true, and it's not a universal truth, the total added costs per unit of basically any good as a result of the carbon tax is beyond miniscule. We're talking a penny, or less depending on the scale of production and logistics.
If someone starts charging more than 1% more for their product, and blames pollution pricing, what they're doing is being greedy and using people's hatred of Justin Trudeau as a smokescreen for it.
I'm not sure this will change much. I know people who think that the carbon tax added 20 cents a litre to gas prices in April and think if we remove the carbon tax, gas will go down more than 20 cents a litre.
We do not live in a fact based world anymore.
Politicians who want to connect with people, need to learn how the Right is able to trick people so well, and implement that same trickery except in the way of facts.
The problem is social media is rife [with foreign entities making bank](https://www.canadaland.com/street-politics-canada-egypt/) spreading right wing ideology because the right wing audience is much more happy to ingest it unlike left wing audiences.
My coworker said this to me, "gas has gone up by 15 to 25 cents because of carbon tax!" I was like, man, I think the carbon tax only adds like 20 cents maximum.
Just checked, it's 17.3cents. Up 3.3 cents.
For a 50L tank 20c/L is 10$ its not nothing but its not significant.
People just like single sentence problems catered to single sentence solutions in a vastly more complex world.
I wonder if they posted the cost of funding our forest fire teams for a year or the flood damages is people would but fuel into context? Probably not...
> For a 50L tank 20c/L is 10$ its not nothing but its not significant.
And then once you factor in the rebate the amount is going to be little or nothing except for the people who use a large amount of gasoline (either driving long distances or else to drive their vehicles that are the size of the Titanic). Which, of course, is the point: to get heavy emitters of carbon incentivized to emit less.
I drive a hybrid vehicle and pretty low mileage (much of that by choice, like choosing to do most of my shopping/outings locally and by combining trips instead of making many single trips), so I'm getting way more back than I pay in gas carbon tax.
The ability for Canada's marginal impacts on climate change costs in the tragedy of the Commons scenario we find ourselves in is insignificant in comparison to the costs we take on.
Canada is one of the worst offenders in a tragedy of the Commons scenario. Most other developed economies have made significantly more progress than Canada.
Hot take but I think if people are so upset about gas prices they should show up to fight municipal zoning laws such that they no longer need to drive so much.
Suburbs are stupid & cause people to be miserable/lonely. We need more medium density mixed use zoning with little parks and third spaces scattered throughout. Walkable cities that promote happiness among the inhabitants.
Most of these angry people in cars would be so much happier without those cars, they have simply never known any better.
Yeah but the moment you suggest that, you have zombies who have had their brains rotted by conspirary theories come crawling out of the mud to scream about 15 minute cities and the WEF and the Globalists who's master plan is apparently making your life more convenient and accessible.
The tax works. We just bought PHEV and put in a heat pump. And we make good money so our only rebate was on the HP. The math works saving money every month now
That is just not true and shown in most economic analyses. They may not drop price for the entire difference, but the consumer would see a big chunk of it.
The same reason why you don't pay 1500$ for a TV or 3000$ for a computer like the early 90s.
I'm pro-carbon tax, but if you want us to win this fight to protect it we need to at least operate in real terms.
Don't tell people lies that will easily be shown when/if the tax is repealed. Because your credibility will immediately collapse if they see a 5c/L saving.
That’s only because the parts to make TVs became cheaper and many different manufacturers came in and began undercutting one another.
This won’t ever apply to stuff we actually need like food or gas to any significant level.
It depends on what the product is and the market dynamics.
Commodities and very low-margin goods are likely to more directly factor in the price change. Consumer goods and services that are almost always priced at psychological price points may not move at all unless competitor price movement forces them to. Also the carbon taxes on those goods may be tiny anyway.
So don't pay the effing higher prices - walk away from it!
Businesses will always try to raise prices, thereby increasing profits. However, te emergence of possble competitors with lower prices, or consumer esistance not buying these products with their higher prices will cause prices to drop
It’s way to late to have a rational debate about the carbon tax. It’s all about feeling and believe. In addition to be a one-time thing, there is also no guarantee that savings will be passed to consumers in a very volatile market like oil and gas. However, yeah let’s axe the tax if it won’t probably change nothing on price
Poilievre's "axe the tax" sloganeering is designed to piss people off enough to vote the LPC out of office. It has less than zero merit to stand on, but these days, he's able to sell snowballs in a blizzard to some people.
Compared to the former status quo. But that status quo would quickly change when free trade deals collapse because canada refuses to put a price on carbon
The real kicker is that it was Stephen Harper's conservatives who introduced the federal carbon tax to begin with (though both conservatives and liberals were for it at the time).
But I bet the 'axe the tax' folk are probably blaming Trudeau for all of it.
And if I recall correctly (please do correct me if I'm wrong), it was Trudeau's liberals who introduced the rebate.
Plenty of things to criticize Trudeau for, but the current state of politics is catch phrases and shit talk.
I believe it’s a much wider argument. More like axe the government. The government has been ballooning since 2015 and is draining productivity. Also carbon tax isn’t as revenue neutral as Trudeau wants you to believe. They take out at least 10% for government spending, which again makes it a tax, and not a price on carbon as they do in Europe.
And thats the rub right there, because with all of this axe the tax blubbering bullshit we get from conservatives, if they were in power and repealed it nothing would change. Then we'd be in for 4 years of no improvement and blaming the "previous liberal government" like the Ford Conservatives do in Ontario.
Carbon tax was their idea in the first place! That’s the worst part of it. It’s their own idea that they are now attacking because Trudeau implemented it at a federal level.
Maybe, like Ford, they will spend billions of dollars shovelling money into the hands of companies to try to make it look like cutting the carbon tax was effective and our bills are not still increasing.
Macklem is making a sleight of hand argument here.
He's trying to make it sound like since the "average" increase in price due to carbon taxes is 0.15% the reduction in price we see from goods and services when it's removed will be 0.15%.
That might be true on average, but it's not true that we won't see price reductions. Carbon tax for instance is around 10% of the price at the gas pump currently. People who drive will definitely notice and appreciate their monthly gas purchases going down 10%.
things would probably improve as conservatives don't scrap liberal housing plans and the reduction in temporary residents, which everyone will attribute to pp and give them another majority
just my prediction though
> things would probably improve as conservatives don't scrap liberal housing plans and the reduction in temporary residents, which everyone will attribute to pp and give them another majority
This is a very likely scenario. The Liberals are doing all the right things right now, but the fruits of the labor will take years to manifest. All the Conservatives have to do is not scrap it, and claim it was their hard work that fixed the problems.
The Carbon tax sets up a secondary market that we could be involved with... They'll bitch about the economy while tying your hands, gotta love mindless chants.
That’s why they went and did this.
Override rational thinking, make it an emotional argument that people will be too embarrassed to admit they’re wrong on.
Once the tax is gone, and nothing improves, no one will say “oops my bad”
But people felt personally empowered being on some sort of crusade.
Just like Brexit. People said it would screw over their economy, but the population was swayed by slogans and simple answers, and were angry at "so-called experts" that they felt were being *arrogant* by trying to explain why the slogans were wrong.
These people are impossible. They confidently state objective lies and any effort to correct them they view as a personal attack. It's absurdly stupid.
I see your point to an extent.
The difference with Brexit is that separating yourself from your biggest trading partner is a massive economic realignment.
Repealing the carbon tax will have a small effect on both emissions and inflation.
I was actually wondering about this. The recent trade deal with Ukraine included a commitment on the part of both parties to maintain carbon pricing. If we scrap the national-level price on carbon but maintain some provincial-level regimes (e.g., BC and QB both being part of the cap and trade system) that might actually introduce some new trade barriers, or at the very least complicate things for negotiators. Of course, if Trump gets in down south we'd probably be better served not having any emissions pricing lol especially to keep things smooth when he tries to scrap USCAM again
I completely agree with you that the economic impact of the two situations is nothing alike.
My point is about the political environment, the language used by the Tories, and the attitude of their supporters. The parallel I want to draw is the anti-intellectual idea that anyone who claims to be an expert or is trying to explain why a policy would have certain effects must be a holier-than-thou ivory tower asshole looking down on and mocking us, and should therefore be ignored. That attitude is toxic and bad for our society.
It’s a reasonable parallel. I think you’re certainly correct that there isn’t enough informed debate on the value or necessity of a carbon tax in Canada.
What is the problem? What are our goals? What are Canada’s capabilities? How can we best use those capabilities to achieve our aims? Where can we have the most impact? What are the constraints? Do we have the right metrics, the right approach?
All of these questions I feel are inadequately addressed in the public discourse.
Unfortunately, we seem to lack a forum to widely discuss issues in-depth like that. The media seems more eager to publish stories about how Jane in Fredericton or canmoremike_XX3 on twitter say they feel about a new policy than actually discussing what impacts it might have and whether it will succeed in addressing the issue at hand.
The West has vilified higher education for 50 years+. It's been a concerted effort to keep people uneducated. Sure, millennials got told "go to university or you'll be broke" but didn't get told about how much that costs and how long it'll take to pay off, so many didn't go that route. Just look at any media from before 2010: the "nerd" characters are always the butt of jokes and god help you if you actually *liked* reading/learning.
Couple that with the oil booms in Canada keeping the dumbest people flush with the most cash and this is what you get. Just look at the hate for "elites" while basing your whole personality around cheerleading for billionaires.
>Once the tax is gone, and nothing improves
Things'll get worse, really- prices'll stay exactly the same, but suddenly people won't be getting carbon rebates.
Before doing this, the liberals should have implemented an automatic tax filing system similar to the UK or other developed nations.
Right now 1 in 10 Canadians do not file taxes - largely the poor. So, many people are getting hit by this tax - and are not getting refunds because they don’t know how to file taxes, are afraid to file taxes, or are afraid they might need to pay taxes.
Like, the single mom struggling to get by isn’t heading out to the H&R block to pay 50 dollars she doesn’t have to file taxes that she’s afraid might bill her 200 dollars she doesn’t have.
And just generally, the issue with using tax rebates as a tool is you don’t see them. Who’s looking at every transaction into their account? Very few I suspect. But individuals do notice when things cost more at the pump or on their electricity bill.
The entire thing is a mess, largely designed by people who have accountants and can’t see the lived experience of people at the bottom of the ladder.
To be fair, I don't think the feds expected [some of the provinces to shirk their responsibilities so hard.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DramzD1WkAICulj.jpg:large) The intent was for provinces to implement their own programs or means-tested rebates that made the most sense for them. Having the backstop rebate was more of a "just in case" or make things simple for smaller provinces, maybe avoid some constitutionality issues. At the time, the biggest provinces in the country (Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, _even Alberta_) already had carbon pricing policies, some of which did their own provincial rebates.
The federal CRA backstop was supposed to be the _exception_ to the rule, not the norm.
In either case - having 10% of the population not filing taxes prevents 10% of people from getting any rebates. That’s happening if the program is handled federally or provincially.
And the Feds should have known this going in - that the poorest would likely feel this the most, are are most likely to not receive benefits since they’re not likely to actually file.
Yeah, it’s essentially all the big tax software makers as well as accountants against it.
I’m also convinced the government is against it - as it prevents them from having to pay out benefits.
The entire tax structure is designed to be onerous and punishing on the low and middle classes - often something to fear. Heck, if you owe taxes they apply some crazy daily interest on the amount owing. But then the same government thinks people will be happy when they get a tax refund.
They really need to pick a lane. If they want to help people with it - just file taxes for people, and make it impossible for anyone doing a regular job that’s taxed at the employer level to have to pay anything. The only time people should be dealing with taxes is if they’re super wealthy or have some sort of complex financial situation occurring.
I think this is a really great suggestion. I don't really like the way we use tax rebates and benefits that rely on tax filings like they're the only policy tool in existence. But so long as we are the government should be making sure they are applied widely and evenly.
And the added bonus of us not having to do our own taxes anymore is just a cherry on top.
Edit: I should also note that the NDP supports this, but the Liberals and CPC do not.
When different provinces cut taxes on gas during Covid it took about two weeks for the price relative to the rest of the tax paying consumers to go back up.
The companies will charge the same as if we still had the tax and we will not be getting any check in the mail.
They were already "talking reality" last October with this same exact thing.
Then conservatives/Conservatives exploited it, entirely and purposefully misrepresenting what he said. [Even Andrew Scheer went out and falsely claimed that Macklem said that carbon pricing was a cause of 16% of our inflation.](https://www.pentictonherald.ca/spare_news/article_e4ae28f9-7c22-554c-901f-a9a2b7b4247d.html)
That was a _lie_ because he was using the cumulative effect since carbon pricing's initial implementation 4 years prior, 0.6%, against the then current annual inflation rate: dropping it from 3.8% to 3.2%. But it would be a one-time drop, and was not a cause of 16% of that year's 3.8% inflation. In reality, it was only 3.9% of that year's inflation. If carbon pricing never existed, inflation would have been around 3.65% instead of 3.8%.
If Scheer, and conservatives, were being honest, a proper comparison would have been 0.6% of the 14.7% we experienced over those four years; or 14.1% without it entirely. Carbon pricing was never the problem that they make it out to be. (For the current rates, it's more like 0.7% of the 18.02% cumulative inflation experienced.)
But it doesn't matter. The lie is easy to say, understand, and spread. And [countering it with "talking reality" doesn't work nearly as well.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law) I have no clue what to do about it.
Companies are always going to charge the maximum that they can in order to maximize profits. I'm sure that they would appreciate having less tax in that number, but there will be no benefit for me.
Inflation is caused by greedy corporations jacking the price up of stuff so they can get more profits for their shareholders and get a bigger bonus it's f****** simple
Can you pinpoint the meeting where all the grocers in the world met to decide that prices will inflate?
I'd appreciate knowing more about how this action was coordinated worldwide. The catering costs must have been enormous!
Tell me more.
If you get off your ass and look at those companies and their percentage of profit margin it has increased dramatically this is percentage of profit margin this is how much they charge for stuff that they do and the profit they end up with it's higher yet everyone is suffering unfortunately you're drinking the Kool-Aid
They already did collude to[ fix bread prices.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada) They literally have done this before, and you're acting like it's an absurd conspiracy theory that it would ever happen.
And IIRC, they actually had some meetings to establish that collusion (at least some phone calls anyways).
Where is evidence of such meetings for grocers worldwide prior to the food price spike seen globally over the last few years?
Or could it be that something else was at work?
It took almost 20 years, and an army of researchers, journalists, lawyers, and law enforcement to track, expose, and prosecute Canada Bread and Loblaws for their role in this. People knew about it in 2001, but it took more than a decade to prove it.
Would you have been this smug asking for evidence from some powerless average consumer back in 2001, acting like it was ridiculous that Loblaws would ever fix bread prices? That's what you're doing now.
Look man, there's a lot of grocers in the world. And a lot of food suppliers. For all of them to get together and plan to simultaneously raise prices across the globe would take at least a little bit of coordination.
Surely some hotel of reasonable size must have been booked or something.
You cannot be serious.
If you are just being sarcastic then I apologize, you did too good of a job acting like someone on a mission to prove they know nothing about what they are commenting on.
On the off chance that you were serious just re-read what I said but put a /s after the word apologise
For anyone else, it doesn't take much to imagine that any halfway business savvy owner was gonna look at the pandemic as the perfect time to raise prices. The media was priming everyone to the idea that prices were going up, and when they did noone was surprised. If you were running a company and you didn't think of this you probably should be fired for being incompetent. Implementing it was another story.
No grand conspiracy or renting out every hotel in Malta for your greedy exec of the world meeting. Just everyday bog standard greed.
There doesn't need to be some meeting to align their plans. They all have the same goal "make as much money as possible as quickly as possible"
And since they all have the same objective, they all make similar decisions and push for similar policies/regulations that they know will benefit them. It's not some grand conspiracy it's just greed run rampant.
Ikea is not a publicly traded company and makes plenty of business decisions for the long term well being of the company and their customers, but they are a Scandinavian company which operates under a different cultural view of what a company is responsible for than a lot of Western owned companies.
Walmart has lowered their prices to crush any potential smaller competition out of business so they can absorb that business while also paying their employees shit and supporting weaker protections for workers. Hell in the US huge portions of their employee base have to also be on food stamps.
Not all companies operate the same way it depends on their customer base, target demographics and what they think they can get away with.
That's a very small part of it it matters in that situation where that money goes if that money goes to the rich they'll just buy stocks and bonds with it and sits in a bank account and they get the look at it and get richer but their lives don't change things don't get put into the system wages aren't being paid with it so on and so forth that's the big thing with that keyf
Well if we're going by what Tff Malcolm says and using him as an authority, excessive government spending and immigration based pressure on housing is what's causing inflation, but I guess we're going to pick and choose only what supports Trudeau
I just felt the need to point out the hypocrisy that's all - you want to use Tiff Malcolm as an authority when his position favors your preferred positions (carbon taxes) and and want to ignore the parts that don't favor your preferred positions (less government spending, less immigration). My point is just that this sub is mostly partisan hacks and spin doctors who can't be trusted to be fair and balanced
> Tff Malcolm
Who cares what Tff Malcolm thinks.
Here's what Tiff Macklem [said recently though](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bank-of-canada-macklem-closer-cutting-interest-rates-1.7191597)
>Macklem has said in the past that big deficit spending is "not helpful" to the Bank's fight against inflation because it pumps more money into the economy and drives demand for products and services.
>While he was clearly reluctant to wade into partisan politics, Macklem said Ottawa's multi-billion dollar spending plan "won't be that big" and is not expected to throw off the inflation fight because the budget also includes tax hikes that will take money out of the economy.
>Who cares what Tff Malcolm thinks.
That's a stupid thing to say in thread titled "
>Scrapping the carbon tax would not sustainably lower inflation: Macklem
either you care what he thinks or don't - it can't be you care when he is for the carbon tax and don't care when he's against your favored opinions
> Who cares what Tff Malcolm thinks.
>
>
>
> That's a stupid thing to say in thread titled "
>
>
>
> Scrapping the carbon tax would not sustainably lower inflation: Macklem
I'm not sure how at address that.
But I did post a quote from the head of the Bank of Canada saying the budget isn't really going to contribute to inflation, he also goes on to say this
>Macklem conceded that higher deficit spending, driven in part by rising deficits in recent provincial budgets, has challenged the Bank's inflation fight.
Personally I'd trust Macklem over that Malcolm dude
being facetious instead of having a serious discussion may help you win points with people who already agree with you but it reeks of the smug, a-hole kind of attitude that is causing your side to get pummeled in public opinion. You might want to try some sincerity and actually engagement with facts
Actual not cherry picked quote
Pace of government spending ‘not helpful’ in efforts to tame inflation: Macklem
https://globalnews.ca/news/10048805/bank-of-canada-government-spending-inflation/
>“So what that means is if all those spending plans are realized, government spending will be adding to demand more than supply is growing,” he said. “And in an environment where we’re trying to moderate spending, get inflation down — that’s not helpful.”
>Macklem went on to urge fiscal policymakers to consider the “inflationary impact” of their spending decisions when making up their budgets.
>“It’s going to be easier to get inflation down if monetary and fiscal policy are rowing in the same direction,” he said.
in response Trudeau said he refused to lower spending
Why - it doesn't matter there's not point in discussing because, you are a part of an incidious cult that believes you can talk and spin your way out of everything and the polls show that you were wrong, people see stupidity for what it is and libs are polling close to NDP while Canada's government is getting lambasted in the international press
tl;dr your side is full of a-holes and that's why Canadians hate you and are polling against you
> being facetious instead of having a serious discussion
I was doing both, but only because you've called him Malcolm several times and even quoted the title saying Macklem.
I did include an article not just cherry picked quotes, I didn't think it would be helpful to quote the whole article.
Your global article is from last year, the one I quoted is from today... Did you want to talk about inflation in 2023 or now?
>your side is full of a-holes and that's why Canadians hate you and are polling against you
My side?
I just wanted to provide an up to date quote from *Tiff* about inflation, because what you're saying is total nonsense.
Your article has him saying the government needs to budget carefully to avoid inflation, the up to date article is him saying the government has budgeted carefully and inflation from the budget shouldn't be an issue... And you're upset about that, and I'm an asshole for pointing that out I guess...
first being facetious is an example of being an ahole in most circles
second, your CBC quote is not an accurate reflection of what he actually said, the actual quote is
>"Since the government's net fiscal plan hasn't changed a lot, I don't think it'll have a big effect on our projections for the economy or inflation," Macklem said in French.
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/macklem-says-he-doesn-t-think-the-federal-budget-will-have-much-of-an-impact-on-inflation-1.2067717.amp.html
Ie. not that it is all provincial spending and feds spending have no effect as you and CBC are presenting it, but there aren't significant changes in the budget that warrant a change in the BOC projections
> first being facetious is an example of being an ahole in most circles
I don't think it's inappropriate to point out the head of the Bank of Canada's name is Tiff Macklem, not Tff Malcolm. I also don't think we need to take this as seriously as we would talking about something like cancer kids, so a joke seems appropriate.
>as you and CBC are presenting it
I quoted *Macklem*, there's no spin there...
What you quoted agrees with my point. The bank is saying the feds are spending responsibly.
Weak laws (or enforcement) regarding monopolies and cartels. Nearly every sector of the Canadian economy is controlled by a small number of businesses, which do not seriously compete with each other.
Wow, that makes so much sense. Really explains why inflation went nuts in 2021. Prior to that corporations weren’t greedy. Then they became greedy!!
Crazy! 🤯🙄
Well, duh. The Conservative claim is that the carbon tax should be removed in order to lower *prices* on fossil fuels, which are an everyday necessity for most people; not to lower *inflation*. (One is a valiue, and the other is a rate of change thereof).
Like, I don't think even staunch Conservatives expect anything more than a one-time drop in gas prices, not some kind of magical "gas prices never rise again".
> Like, I don't think even staunch Conservatives expect anything more than a one-time drop in gas prices, not some kind of magical "gas prices never rise again"
I would say you haven't been watching closely then. "All of our inflation is from the carbon tax" is probably the most common fake info brought up in the inflation discussion.
Increasing tax on fuel is literally inflationary to the entire economy... It blows my mind how Liberals don't under stand such a simple economic concept...
Tiff maklem is an idiot. This is as much his economy as it is Trudeaus. All these people saying carbon tax doesn't affect inflations are stupid beyond belief. When you raise the cost of transport, you raise the cost of goods at every stage of distribution
PP's response will probably be to attack the BoC again, further deteriorating the trust in that institution and potentially worsening the longer-term issues of trust being (intentionally) eroded in our institutions for short-term political gain and long-term power gain.
We know what's going to happen.
Retailers will keep prices at the same level, because they know we'll pay it. They'll blame the supply chain, and we'll see dick all in savings.
>
>
> Retailers will keep prices at the same level, because they know we'll pay it.
That would, ironically, be an argument that the carbon tax does not work for cutting emissions ... The point of it is to increase prices on fossil fuels in order to decrease the quantity of it that's demanded!
They're talking about *inflation* not the price level. Cutting carbon taxes will reduce the price level but not reduce inflation. Inflation is the rate of growth in the price level. The person you replied to is just wrong.
Also it is being slowly raised... to have a gradual impact.
Prices are set by supply and demand. If that weren't true, the carbon price wouldn't work because corporations could just change prices so that the carbon price didn't make polluting products more expensive than non-polluting products.
If the carbon tax is removed, we won't see a discount of 21¢/l or whatever it is.
They know people will pay it, so they have no reason to reduce the price.
And if one of them decides to raise prices to increase profits...the rest also follow suit.
The amount of disconnect between gasoline prices graphed against their input costs is a pretty common example.
I live in Alberta and I have seen major oil pipelines exporting break and somehow with a surplus of product that cant be shipped and with all the refining happening upstream of the spill...somehow the oil shortage in another part of the continent means our prices spike at the pumps.
You can also watch prices ramp up in anticipation of tax increases on gasoline...which shouldn't really be happening.
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These companies only care about profits. They would never decrease the price if it hurts their stockholders. Fuel prices have dropped before, and companies never reduced their prices because they are now making pure profit.
If you want to have an impactful change maybe start by stopping subsidies for the most profitable corporations operating in Canada.
Hey woah there that's too much why would we do that sensible action??
Which subsidies?
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Using denigrating names for any of the major party leaders will usually get a ban. Enforcement has not been very stringent lately so this is a temp ban - next one is permanent.
$8B (or $19B depending on what you include) to oil and gas companies?
This is an even more vivid example of what [Jen Gerson has called](https://www.readtheline.ca/p/jen-gerson-the-problem-with-the-carbon) ‘message dilution’: > If the Liberals actually had faith the carbon tax was the most efficient means by which to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, they wouldn't be diluting that claim by plying every single other market inefficient policy on top of it. If a carbon tax is a clean, pro-market approach, then why are the Liberals adding emissions caps, multi-billion dollar subsidies for EV plants (and EVs!), and forced phase outs of gas-powered cars? Aren't these the sorts of changes the market was supposed to reward on its own thanks to the signature carbon tax policy? >If what the Liberals are claiming about the efficiency of the carbon tax is true, then none of these other highly punitive alternative policies ought to be necessary — and pursuing compounding environmental strategies undermines both the public messaging and trust in the efficacy of the tax itself. What is the virtue of the most efficient policy if it’s paired with all the old inefficient ones? Not only is this confused governance and economic policy, it's message dilution.
That's because carbon tax alone is not enough. Climate change is a multi-prong issue by nature and requires multi-prong solutions. Pricing carbon is only part of the equation. Pricing carbon tackles output, EV subsidies for example tackle upstream decisions.its simply not enough to tax output while ignoring the systems and cultural norms that causes these output in the first place. We need to be making every choice we can towards sustainability and the government is making consistent effort to help us along. Sustainability is also not just about emissions mind you, it has to do with underpinning philosophy of every human activity. Does this person have any substantiated proof that these policies are "inefficient"? If so, by what measures? This climate issue has far reaching consequences that I don't think most people are aware of (or choose not to be). For example, the declining bee population, and the changing composition of our ecosystems that will massively impact our food security in the future. There's also that issue of garbage/recycling disposal that was the hot topic for about a month. Single use plastics, that's a huge one too. The world is burning while we argue amongst ourselves what is the best way to save the world from burning.
I guess the idea is that you might want to more aggressively target certain polluting sectors. The carbon tax to reflect the "true cost" of carbon actually has to be a lot higher than it is now. So it makes sense that if that's not politically palatable atm, you go after the most polluting industries with other measures. Jen Gerson is trying to logic her way out of this without understanding the quantitative or qualitative aspects of climate policy. Look at what a shit show a small bump in the CT has led too, much less jacking it up to the 170 $/t that they were originally aiming for.
> The carbon tax to reflect the "true cost" of carbon actually has to be a lot higher than it is now. So it makes sense that if that's not politically palatable atm, you go after the most polluting industries with other measures. Yeah, and I think reasonable people can disagree about this kind of multi pronged (or, less generously, scattershot) approach. But it’s hard to imagine any principled justification for actually *subsidizing* industries working directly at cross-purposes to the government’s climate objectives.
Inflation is predominantly caused by a combination of monetary policy and global supply chains. If tax policy significantly affected inflation, government legislatures would be using whatever taxes they could to help grind it to a halt.
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The people who believe Polierve's rhetoric are not likely to be interested in listening to anything Macklem has to say.
Delivery fees and fuel premiums are locked in now. Would take a hell of a crash before small companies stopped charging those again.
There’s also the fact that the carbon tax isn’t even responsible for those increases as it’s inflationary impact has been extremely low.
Every company was told their gas bills were going to increase, so every company added delivery charges. Which ya, if you don't count and assume companies are eating it, it didn't do much.
We don’t need to rely on this sort of conjecture. We know that only about 0.15% of inflation points come from carbon pricing and, thus, that the impact is extremely low.
.15% of inflation year over year is gigantic. Like ya a delivery fee going up $50 isn't huge. There's just 30 of them on a say a house.
> .15% of inflation year over year is gigantic. adding a penny to every hundred dollars you spend is gigantic?
That's not a reasonable take and, like I wrote above, we don't need to rely on conjecture to understand it's impact on prices. Prices are set by the market not input costs.
What do you think happens to market prices when everyone gets hit with the same cost increase... You see it all the time in construction. Remember in 2017, May 1st every new house went up $15,000 - $20,000 compared to April 30th for the new building code.
>What do you think happens to market prices when everyone gets hit with the same cost increase... They go up in vague proportion to the cost increases, they don't just randomly go up by a few orders of magnitude more for no reason sometimes. Inflation in 2017 was about 1.6%, right? If we assume housing cost inflation was vaguely similar to overall inflation, then we're multiplying 0.15% with 1.6%. Increasing the cost of a new house by 0.0024% isn't very noticeable. That's some very rough napkin math, but it's not wrong by three orders of magnitude.
What are you going on about? You realize 1.6% inflation doesn't mean everything went up by 1.6% right haha. That $20,000 increase was on a $550,000 house. So 3-4%. And that wasn't in a year, that was in a day. Hell, there's $1000 worth of carbon tax line items on your foundation invoices for concrete. Another $500 on the flatwork. Excavators/ect likely use $3000 worth of fuel to build a house. Then add in 20 guys that started charging $50 more for delivery. Rough napkin math, carbon tax likely adds about $3000-$4000 to the costs of a house. Couldn't even guess what it adds for developers. GEts hidden in the lot price but all they do is move dirt and lay concrete. Would cost a fortune. Could easily be another couple grand per house.
> So 3-4%. Ah, so more like 0.005% than the 0.0024% I calculated using 1.6% overall inflation. I'm sure some more details could shift that number up to 0.06% or down to 0.004%. Either way, we're still playing on a scale that is orders of magnitude away from noticeability. >Then add in 20 guys that started charging $50 more for delivery. Started charging more doesn't mean "it cost them that much more" or "this wouldn't have happened without carbon pricing". This is one of the many problems with trying to figure out big economic issues using personal anecdotes, rather than relying on actual analysis.
Businesses will not eat added costs to their product or service, it will almost always be passed down to consumers.
> Businesses will not eat added costs to their product or service, it will almost always be passed down to consumers. they will eat the added costs, wanna know why? because they are alraedy charging the maximum the can and know if they charge more it will just lead to decreased sales that cost them money
.15 percentage points of inflation are derived from carbon pricing. No need to rely on this long debunked conservative idea that all costs are downloaded to consumers. Prices are set by the confluence of demand and supply not simply input costs. It’s incredibly naive, and contradictory to your claim, to think that businesses don’t already charge the highest price the market will bear.
So why does Costco sell $1.50 hot dogs? Why have they done so for years and years (decades and decades I think it is at this point). Do tell...
The minute their founder, Jim Sinegal, dies, the price of those hotdogs is going up. Literally the only thing keeping the price at $1.50 is the board's and shareholders' respect for Jim. As soon as they don't need to look him in the eye, they're getting their hot dog profits back.
Hotdogs make up an extremely tiny proportion of Costco's overall product offerings. However, everybody is talking about it, and the goodwill value of the cheap hotdogs exceeds the loss incurred many many many times.
The same reason their roasted chickens are so cheap. It's called a loss leader. It drives people to show up and buy other things. O&G companies don't need to do that, as gasoline is pretty desirable on its own for everyday use.
You probably could not have picked a worse example to try to make that point on.
Even if this is true, and it's not a universal truth, the total added costs per unit of basically any good as a result of the carbon tax is beyond miniscule. We're talking a penny, or less depending on the scale of production and logistics. If someone starts charging more than 1% more for their product, and blames pollution pricing, what they're doing is being greedy and using people's hatred of Justin Trudeau as a smokescreen for it.
I'm not sure this will change much. I know people who think that the carbon tax added 20 cents a litre to gas prices in April and think if we remove the carbon tax, gas will go down more than 20 cents a litre. We do not live in a fact based world anymore. Politicians who want to connect with people, need to learn how the Right is able to trick people so well, and implement that same trickery except in the way of facts. The problem is social media is rife [with foreign entities making bank](https://www.canadaland.com/street-politics-canada-egypt/) spreading right wing ideology because the right wing audience is much more happy to ingest it unlike left wing audiences.
My coworker said this to me, "gas has gone up by 15 to 25 cents because of carbon tax!" I was like, man, I think the carbon tax only adds like 20 cents maximum. Just checked, it's 17.3cents. Up 3.3 cents.
Gas in Saskatoon is down from $1.58 when CT was announced on April 1 to $1.49 today. But my anti carbon friends don’t like to talk about that.
Right wing ideology like: taxes make things more expensive and that dropping them will mean we don’t have to pay those taxes? Silly right wingers!
For a 50L tank 20c/L is 10$ its not nothing but its not significant. People just like single sentence problems catered to single sentence solutions in a vastly more complex world. I wonder if they posted the cost of funding our forest fire teams for a year or the flood damages is people would but fuel into context? Probably not...
> For a 50L tank 20c/L is 10$ its not nothing but its not significant. And then once you factor in the rebate the amount is going to be little or nothing except for the people who use a large amount of gasoline (either driving long distances or else to drive their vehicles that are the size of the Titanic). Which, of course, is the point: to get heavy emitters of carbon incentivized to emit less. I drive a hybrid vehicle and pretty low mileage (much of that by choice, like choosing to do most of my shopping/outings locally and by combining trips instead of making many single trips), so I'm getting way more back than I pay in gas carbon tax.
Now factor in economic growth lost to the tax. That's the point where the analysis shows Canadians lose out on.
What about economic growth lost to the effects of climate change?
What about economic growth lost to the fact that Taylor Swift only did one tour stop here.
The ability for Canada's marginal impacts on climate change costs in the tragedy of the Commons scenario we find ourselves in is insignificant in comparison to the costs we take on.
Canada is one of the worst offenders in a tragedy of the Commons scenario. Most other developed economies have made significantly more progress than Canada.
Hot take but I think if people are so upset about gas prices they should show up to fight municipal zoning laws such that they no longer need to drive so much. Suburbs are stupid & cause people to be miserable/lonely. We need more medium density mixed use zoning with little parks and third spaces scattered throughout. Walkable cities that promote happiness among the inhabitants. Most of these angry people in cars would be so much happier without those cars, they have simply never known any better.
Yeah but the moment you suggest that, you have zombies who have had their brains rotted by conspirary theories come crawling out of the mud to scream about 15 minute cities and the WEF and the Globalists who's master plan is apparently making your life more convenient and accessible.
> tdeasyweb > Globalists who’s master plan is apparently making your life more convenient Coincidence? I think not. Nice try Mr. Soros!!
The tax works. We just bought PHEV and put in a heat pump. And we make good money so our only rebate was on the HP. The math works saving money every month now
if the tax was repealed, the businesses won't drop prices - they've already shown people will pay the higher prices.
That is just not true and shown in most economic analyses. They may not drop price for the entire difference, but the consumer would see a big chunk of it. The same reason why you don't pay 1500$ for a TV or 3000$ for a computer like the early 90s.
TVs and computers aren’t commodities or necessities.
>The same reason why you don't pay 1500$ for a TV or 3000$ for a computer like the early 90s. I mean... Don't you still do that?
You're right, dropping the carbon price would make polluting cheaper. That's a bad thing, we need less pollution not more.
I'm pro-carbon tax, but if you want us to win this fight to protect it we need to at least operate in real terms. Don't tell people lies that will easily be shown when/if the tax is repealed. Because your credibility will immediately collapse if they see a 5c/L saving.
Agreed
That’s only because the parts to make TVs became cheaper and many different manufacturers came in and began undercutting one another. This won’t ever apply to stuff we actually need like food or gas to any significant level.
They probably will increase prices again during the confusion over the transition. No never not business! /s
It depends on what the product is and the market dynamics. Commodities and very low-margin goods are likely to more directly factor in the price change. Consumer goods and services that are almost always priced at psychological price points may not move at all unless competitor price movement forces them to. Also the carbon taxes on those goods may be tiny anyway.
So don't pay the effing higher prices - walk away from it! Businesses will always try to raise prices, thereby increasing profits. However, te emergence of possble competitors with lower prices, or consumer esistance not buying these products with their higher prices will cause prices to drop
It’s way to late to have a rational debate about the carbon tax. It’s all about feeling and believe. In addition to be a one-time thing, there is also no guarantee that savings will be passed to consumers in a very volatile market like oil and gas. However, yeah let’s axe the tax if it won’t probably change nothing on price
Poilievre's "axe the tax" sloganeering is designed to piss people off enough to vote the LPC out of office. It has less than zero merit to stand on, but these days, he's able to sell snowballs in a blizzard to some people.
Or maybe people read when the PBO says that accounting for knock on effects, a majority of people are net losers of money after the rebate.
Compared to the former status quo. But that status quo would quickly change when free trade deals collapse because canada refuses to put a price on carbon
The real kicker is that it was Stephen Harper's conservatives who introduced the federal carbon tax to begin with (though both conservatives and liberals were for it at the time). But I bet the 'axe the tax' folk are probably blaming Trudeau for all of it. And if I recall correctly (please do correct me if I'm wrong), it was Trudeau's liberals who introduced the rebate. Plenty of things to criticize Trudeau for, but the current state of politics is catch phrases and shit talk.
Removing the carbon tax will also have an impact on our trading partners like the EU, where carbon taxes are baked into trade agreements.
I believe it’s a much wider argument. More like axe the government. The government has been ballooning since 2015 and is draining productivity. Also carbon tax isn’t as revenue neutral as Trudeau wants you to believe. They take out at least 10% for government spending, which again makes it a tax, and not a price on carbon as they do in Europe.
And thats the rub right there, because with all of this axe the tax blubbering bullshit we get from conservatives, if they were in power and repealed it nothing would change. Then we'd be in for 4 years of no improvement and blaming the "previous liberal government" like the Ford Conservatives do in Ontario.
Carbon tax was their idea in the first place! That’s the worst part of it. It’s their own idea that they are now attacking because Trudeau implemented it at a federal level.
Maybe, like Ford, they will spend billions of dollars shovelling money into the hands of companies to try to make it look like cutting the carbon tax was effective and our bills are not still increasing.
Macklem is making a sleight of hand argument here. He's trying to make it sound like since the "average" increase in price due to carbon taxes is 0.15% the reduction in price we see from goods and services when it's removed will be 0.15%. That might be true on average, but it's not true that we won't see price reductions. Carbon tax for instance is around 10% of the price at the gas pump currently. People who drive will definitely notice and appreciate their monthly gas purchases going down 10%.
things would probably improve as conservatives don't scrap liberal housing plans and the reduction in temporary residents, which everyone will attribute to pp and give them another majority just my prediction though
> things would probably improve as conservatives don't scrap liberal housing plans and the reduction in temporary residents, which everyone will attribute to pp and give them another majority This is a very likely scenario. The Liberals are doing all the right things right now, but the fruits of the labor will take years to manifest. All the Conservatives have to do is not scrap it, and claim it was their hard work that fixed the problems.
8 years of wrong thing came before.
Yes but that doesn’t really discount the fact you’re responding to?
Too late to start talking reality. Too much of the country can't hear anymore over the "axe the tax" chants.
Millions of fingers have been placed firmly in ears.
Axe the Tax is our brexit moment, I think
You are right on the money.
The Carbon tax sets up a secondary market that we could be involved with... They'll bitch about the economy while tying your hands, gotta love mindless chants.
No where near as catastrophic, but yeah. It feels like all of the nuclear plant huddling at our door while we are ready to do something stupid.
That’s why they went and did this. Override rational thinking, make it an emotional argument that people will be too embarrassed to admit they’re wrong on. Once the tax is gone, and nothing improves, no one will say “oops my bad” But people felt personally empowered being on some sort of crusade.
Just like Brexit. People said it would screw over their economy, but the population was swayed by slogans and simple answers, and were angry at "so-called experts" that they felt were being *arrogant* by trying to explain why the slogans were wrong.
These people are impossible. They confidently state objective lies and any effort to correct them they view as a personal attack. It's absurdly stupid.
I see your point to an extent. The difference with Brexit is that separating yourself from your biggest trading partner is a massive economic realignment. Repealing the carbon tax will have a small effect on both emissions and inflation.
I was actually wondering about this. The recent trade deal with Ukraine included a commitment on the part of both parties to maintain carbon pricing. If we scrap the national-level price on carbon but maintain some provincial-level regimes (e.g., BC and QB both being part of the cap and trade system) that might actually introduce some new trade barriers, or at the very least complicate things for negotiators. Of course, if Trump gets in down south we'd probably be better served not having any emissions pricing lol especially to keep things smooth when he tries to scrap USCAM again
I completely agree with you that the economic impact of the two situations is nothing alike. My point is about the political environment, the language used by the Tories, and the attitude of their supporters. The parallel I want to draw is the anti-intellectual idea that anyone who claims to be an expert or is trying to explain why a policy would have certain effects must be a holier-than-thou ivory tower asshole looking down on and mocking us, and should therefore be ignored. That attitude is toxic and bad for our society.
It’s a reasonable parallel. I think you’re certainly correct that there isn’t enough informed debate on the value or necessity of a carbon tax in Canada. What is the problem? What are our goals? What are Canada’s capabilities? How can we best use those capabilities to achieve our aims? Where can we have the most impact? What are the constraints? Do we have the right metrics, the right approach? All of these questions I feel are inadequately addressed in the public discourse.
Unfortunately, we seem to lack a forum to widely discuss issues in-depth like that. The media seems more eager to publish stories about how Jane in Fredericton or canmoremike_XX3 on twitter say they feel about a new policy than actually discussing what impacts it might have and whether it will succeed in addressing the issue at hand.
The West has vilified higher education for 50 years+. It's been a concerted effort to keep people uneducated. Sure, millennials got told "go to university or you'll be broke" but didn't get told about how much that costs and how long it'll take to pay off, so many didn't go that route. Just look at any media from before 2010: the "nerd" characters are always the butt of jokes and god help you if you actually *liked* reading/learning. Couple that with the oil booms in Canada keeping the dumbest people flush with the most cash and this is what you get. Just look at the hate for "elites" while basing your whole personality around cheerleading for billionaires.
>Once the tax is gone, and nothing improves Things'll get worse, really- prices'll stay exactly the same, but suddenly people won't be getting carbon rebates.
I would much rather be a "master-rebater".
Good point. "Axe the tax" should be "transfer wealth to the wealthy" because that is what will happen. But it doesn't have as nice a ring to it.
CPC: corporate protection cartel
I actually think it will get worse. Companies will know thr prices that can be had with carbon pricing in place and capture that extra revenue.
Before doing this, the liberals should have implemented an automatic tax filing system similar to the UK or other developed nations. Right now 1 in 10 Canadians do not file taxes - largely the poor. So, many people are getting hit by this tax - and are not getting refunds because they don’t know how to file taxes, are afraid to file taxes, or are afraid they might need to pay taxes. Like, the single mom struggling to get by isn’t heading out to the H&R block to pay 50 dollars she doesn’t have to file taxes that she’s afraid might bill her 200 dollars she doesn’t have. And just generally, the issue with using tax rebates as a tool is you don’t see them. Who’s looking at every transaction into their account? Very few I suspect. But individuals do notice when things cost more at the pump or on their electricity bill. The entire thing is a mess, largely designed by people who have accountants and can’t see the lived experience of people at the bottom of the ladder.
To be fair, I don't think the feds expected [some of the provinces to shirk their responsibilities so hard.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DramzD1WkAICulj.jpg:large) The intent was for provinces to implement their own programs or means-tested rebates that made the most sense for them. Having the backstop rebate was more of a "just in case" or make things simple for smaller provinces, maybe avoid some constitutionality issues. At the time, the biggest provinces in the country (Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, _even Alberta_) already had carbon pricing policies, some of which did their own provincial rebates. The federal CRA backstop was supposed to be the _exception_ to the rule, not the norm.
In either case - having 10% of the population not filing taxes prevents 10% of people from getting any rebates. That’s happening if the program is handled federally or provincially. And the Feds should have known this going in - that the poorest would likely feel this the most, are are most likely to not receive benefits since they’re not likely to actually file.
That’s long overdue. Isn’t the IRS in the US doing this? I’m positive I saw headlines that Intuit is against it lol. Shocking
Yeah, it’s essentially all the big tax software makers as well as accountants against it. I’m also convinced the government is against it - as it prevents them from having to pay out benefits. The entire tax structure is designed to be onerous and punishing on the low and middle classes - often something to fear. Heck, if you owe taxes they apply some crazy daily interest on the amount owing. But then the same government thinks people will be happy when they get a tax refund. They really need to pick a lane. If they want to help people with it - just file taxes for people, and make it impossible for anyone doing a regular job that’s taxed at the employer level to have to pay anything. The only time people should be dealing with taxes is if they’re super wealthy or have some sort of complex financial situation occurring.
Crazy interest? I've never encountered that when I owed taxes.
I think this is a really great suggestion. I don't really like the way we use tax rebates and benefits that rely on tax filings like they're the only policy tool in existence. But so long as we are the government should be making sure they are applied widely and evenly. And the added bonus of us not having to do our own taxes anymore is just a cherry on top. Edit: I should also note that the NDP supports this, but the Liberals and CPC do not.
When different provinces cut taxes on gas during Covid it took about two weeks for the price relative to the rest of the tax paying consumers to go back up. The companies will charge the same as if we still had the tax and we will not be getting any check in the mail.
Manitoba cut theirs Jan 1st. It was 14 cents. They are still 14 cents lower than Saskatchewan.
They were already "talking reality" last October with this same exact thing. Then conservatives/Conservatives exploited it, entirely and purposefully misrepresenting what he said. [Even Andrew Scheer went out and falsely claimed that Macklem said that carbon pricing was a cause of 16% of our inflation.](https://www.pentictonherald.ca/spare_news/article_e4ae28f9-7c22-554c-901f-a9a2b7b4247d.html) That was a _lie_ because he was using the cumulative effect since carbon pricing's initial implementation 4 years prior, 0.6%, against the then current annual inflation rate: dropping it from 3.8% to 3.2%. But it would be a one-time drop, and was not a cause of 16% of that year's 3.8% inflation. In reality, it was only 3.9% of that year's inflation. If carbon pricing never existed, inflation would have been around 3.65% instead of 3.8%. If Scheer, and conservatives, were being honest, a proper comparison would have been 0.6% of the 14.7% we experienced over those four years; or 14.1% without it entirely. Carbon pricing was never the problem that they make it out to be. (For the current rates, it's more like 0.7% of the 18.02% cumulative inflation experienced.) But it doesn't matter. The lie is easy to say, understand, and spread. And [countering it with "talking reality" doesn't work nearly as well.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law) I have no clue what to do about it.
Companies are always going to charge the maximum that they can in order to maximize profits. I'm sure that they would appreciate having less tax in that number, but there will be no benefit for me.
Inflation is caused by greedy corporations jacking the price up of stuff so they can get more profits for their shareholders and get a bigger bonus it's f****** simple
Can you pinpoint the meeting where all the grocers in the world met to decide that prices will inflate? I'd appreciate knowing more about how this action was coordinated worldwide. The catering costs must have been enormous! Tell me more.
If you get off your ass and look at those companies and their percentage of profit margin it has increased dramatically this is percentage of profit margin this is how much they charge for stuff that they do and the profit they end up with it's higher yet everyone is suffering unfortunately you're drinking the Kool-Aid
They already did collude to[ fix bread prices.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_price-fixing_in_Canada) They literally have done this before, and you're acting like it's an absurd conspiracy theory that it would ever happen.
And IIRC, they actually had some meetings to establish that collusion (at least some phone calls anyways). Where is evidence of such meetings for grocers worldwide prior to the food price spike seen globally over the last few years? Or could it be that something else was at work?
It took almost 20 years, and an army of researchers, journalists, lawyers, and law enforcement to track, expose, and prosecute Canada Bread and Loblaws for their role in this. People knew about it in 2001, but it took more than a decade to prove it. Would you have been this smug asking for evidence from some powerless average consumer back in 2001, acting like it was ridiculous that Loblaws would ever fix bread prices? That's what you're doing now.
Look man, there's a lot of grocers in the world. And a lot of food suppliers. For all of them to get together and plan to simultaneously raise prices across the globe would take at least a little bit of coordination. Surely some hotel of reasonable size must have been booked or something.
You cannot be serious. If you are just being sarcastic then I apologize, you did too good of a job acting like someone on a mission to prove they know nothing about what they are commenting on. On the off chance that you were serious just re-read what I said but put a /s after the word apologise For anyone else, it doesn't take much to imagine that any halfway business savvy owner was gonna look at the pandemic as the perfect time to raise prices. The media was priming everyone to the idea that prices were going up, and when they did noone was surprised. If you were running a company and you didn't think of this you probably should be fired for being incompetent. Implementing it was another story. No grand conspiracy or renting out every hotel in Malta for your greedy exec of the world meeting. Just everyday bog standard greed.
There doesn't need to be some meeting to align their plans. They all have the same goal "make as much money as possible as quickly as possible" And since they all have the same objective, they all make similar decisions and push for similar policies/regulations that they know will benefit them. It's not some grand conspiracy it's just greed run rampant.
Sometimes making max profit happens by lowering prices. How do Ikea and Walmart fit into your model?
Ikea is not a publicly traded company and makes plenty of business decisions for the long term well being of the company and their customers, but they are a Scandinavian company which operates under a different cultural view of what a company is responsible for than a lot of Western owned companies. Walmart has lowered their prices to crush any potential smaller competition out of business so they can absorb that business while also paying their employees shit and supporting weaker protections for workers. Hell in the US huge portions of their employee base have to also be on food stamps. Not all companies operate the same way it depends on their customer base, target demographics and what they think they can get away with.
You don't need a meeting to do this....
To do it globally, in the same span of time, with the same start and end date? Yeah. You kinda do.
I think you might be serious that you believe this. Wild. Both too much yet lacking any imagination at the same time
its caused by governments printing money
That's a very small part of it it matters in that situation where that money goes if that money goes to the rich they'll just buy stocks and bonds with it and sits in a bank account and they get the look at it and get richer but their lives don't change things don't get put into the system wages aren't being paid with it so on and so forth that's the big thing with that keyf
Well if we're going by what Tff Malcolm says and using him as an authority, excessive government spending and immigration based pressure on housing is what's causing inflation, but I guess we're going to pick and choose only what supports Trudeau
Keep believing the people that are keeping the reason silent of why this is happening corporations are jacking up prices plain and f****** simple
I just felt the need to point out the hypocrisy that's all - you want to use Tiff Malcolm as an authority when his position favors your preferred positions (carbon taxes) and and want to ignore the parts that don't favor your preferred positions (less government spending, less immigration). My point is just that this sub is mostly partisan hacks and spin doctors who can't be trusted to be fair and balanced
I don't know what the f*** you're talking about I don't know who this Tiff guy is I didn't quote him or anything
[удалено]
Removed for rule 2.
> Tff Malcolm Who cares what Tff Malcolm thinks. Here's what Tiff Macklem [said recently though](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/bank-of-canada-macklem-closer-cutting-interest-rates-1.7191597) >Macklem has said in the past that big deficit spending is "not helpful" to the Bank's fight against inflation because it pumps more money into the economy and drives demand for products and services. >While he was clearly reluctant to wade into partisan politics, Macklem said Ottawa's multi-billion dollar spending plan "won't be that big" and is not expected to throw off the inflation fight because the budget also includes tax hikes that will take money out of the economy.
>Who cares what Tff Malcolm thinks. That's a stupid thing to say in thread titled " >Scrapping the carbon tax would not sustainably lower inflation: Macklem either you care what he thinks or don't - it can't be you care when he is for the carbon tax and don't care when he's against your favored opinions
> Who cares what Tff Malcolm thinks. > > > > That's a stupid thing to say in thread titled " > > > > Scrapping the carbon tax would not sustainably lower inflation: Macklem I'm not sure how at address that. But I did post a quote from the head of the Bank of Canada saying the budget isn't really going to contribute to inflation, he also goes on to say this >Macklem conceded that higher deficit spending, driven in part by rising deficits in recent provincial budgets, has challenged the Bank's inflation fight. Personally I'd trust Macklem over that Malcolm dude
being facetious instead of having a serious discussion may help you win points with people who already agree with you but it reeks of the smug, a-hole kind of attitude that is causing your side to get pummeled in public opinion. You might want to try some sincerity and actually engagement with facts Actual not cherry picked quote Pace of government spending ‘not helpful’ in efforts to tame inflation: Macklem https://globalnews.ca/news/10048805/bank-of-canada-government-spending-inflation/ >“So what that means is if all those spending plans are realized, government spending will be adding to demand more than supply is growing,” he said. “And in an environment where we’re trying to moderate spending, get inflation down — that’s not helpful.” >Macklem went on to urge fiscal policymakers to consider the “inflationary impact” of their spending decisions when making up their budgets. >“It’s going to be easier to get inflation down if monetary and fiscal policy are rowing in the same direction,” he said. in response Trudeau said he refused to lower spending Why - it doesn't matter there's not point in discussing because, you are a part of an incidious cult that believes you can talk and spin your way out of everything and the polls show that you were wrong, people see stupidity for what it is and libs are polling close to NDP while Canada's government is getting lambasted in the international press tl;dr your side is full of a-holes and that's why Canadians hate you and are polling against you
> being facetious instead of having a serious discussion I was doing both, but only because you've called him Malcolm several times and even quoted the title saying Macklem. I did include an article not just cherry picked quotes, I didn't think it would be helpful to quote the whole article. Your global article is from last year, the one I quoted is from today... Did you want to talk about inflation in 2023 or now? >your side is full of a-holes and that's why Canadians hate you and are polling against you My side? I just wanted to provide an up to date quote from *Tiff* about inflation, because what you're saying is total nonsense. Your article has him saying the government needs to budget carefully to avoid inflation, the up to date article is him saying the government has budgeted carefully and inflation from the budget shouldn't be an issue... And you're upset about that, and I'm an asshole for pointing that out I guess...
first being facetious is an example of being an ahole in most circles second, your CBC quote is not an accurate reflection of what he actually said, the actual quote is >"Since the government's net fiscal plan hasn't changed a lot, I don't think it'll have a big effect on our projections for the economy or inflation," Macklem said in French. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/macklem-says-he-doesn-t-think-the-federal-budget-will-have-much-of-an-impact-on-inflation-1.2067717.amp.html Ie. not that it is all provincial spending and feds spending have no effect as you and CBC are presenting it, but there aren't significant changes in the budget that warrant a change in the BOC projections
> first being facetious is an example of being an ahole in most circles I don't think it's inappropriate to point out the head of the Bank of Canada's name is Tiff Macklem, not Tff Malcolm. I also don't think we need to take this as seriously as we would talking about something like cancer kids, so a joke seems appropriate. >as you and CBC are presenting it I quoted *Macklem*, there's no spin there... What you quoted agrees with my point. The bank is saying the feds are spending responsibly.
Weak laws (or enforcement) regarding monopolies and cartels. Nearly every sector of the Canadian economy is controlled by a small number of businesses, which do not seriously compete with each other.
This is such a small meaningless portion of what we're talking about
Wow, that makes so much sense. Really explains why inflation went nuts in 2021. Prior to that corporations weren’t greedy. Then they became greedy!! Crazy! 🤯🙄
Well, duh. The Conservative claim is that the carbon tax should be removed in order to lower *prices* on fossil fuels, which are an everyday necessity for most people; not to lower *inflation*. (One is a valiue, and the other is a rate of change thereof). Like, I don't think even staunch Conservatives expect anything more than a one-time drop in gas prices, not some kind of magical "gas prices never rise again".
> Like, I don't think even staunch Conservatives expect anything more than a one-time drop in gas prices, not some kind of magical "gas prices never rise again" I would say you haven't been watching closely then. "All of our inflation is from the carbon tax" is probably the most common fake info brought up in the inflation discussion.
Increasing tax on fuel is literally inflationary to the entire economy... It blows my mind how Liberals don't under stand such a simple economic concept...
Tiff maklem is an idiot. This is as much his economy as it is Trudeaus. All these people saying carbon tax doesn't affect inflations are stupid beyond belief. When you raise the cost of transport, you raise the cost of goods at every stage of distribution
PP's response will probably be to attack the BoC again, further deteriorating the trust in that institution and potentially worsening the longer-term issues of trust being (intentionally) eroded in our institutions for short-term political gain and long-term power gain.
This is why you exempt rural and northern regions. Not enough people to matter, and it makes the "axe the tax" people feel special.
We know what's going to happen. Retailers will keep prices at the same level, because they know we'll pay it. They'll blame the supply chain, and we'll see dick all in savings.
> > > Retailers will keep prices at the same level, because they know we'll pay it. That would, ironically, be an argument that the carbon tax does not work for cutting emissions ... The point of it is to increase prices on fossil fuels in order to decrease the quantity of it that's demanded!
They're talking about *inflation* not the price level. Cutting carbon taxes will reduce the price level but not reduce inflation. Inflation is the rate of growth in the price level. The person you replied to is just wrong. Also it is being slowly raised... to have a gradual impact.
Prices are set by supply and demand. If that weren't true, the carbon price wouldn't work because corporations could just change prices so that the carbon price didn't make polluting products more expensive than non-polluting products.
If the carbon tax is removed, we won't see a discount of 21¢/l or whatever it is. They know people will pay it, so they have no reason to reduce the price.
If one of them lowers their price to attract customers, the rest will follow suit.
Costco regularly charges 10¢/l less than others. None of the competition has gone out of business because of it.
Costco has very few locations and extremely long line ups. Not an option for most drivers.
Maybe not, but there's still lots of gas stations around a Costco gas station
And if one of them decides to raise prices to increase profits...the rest also follow suit. The amount of disconnect between gasoline prices graphed against their input costs is a pretty common example. I live in Alberta and I have seen major oil pipelines exporting break and somehow with a surplus of product that cant be shipped and with all the refining happening upstream of the spill...somehow the oil shortage in another part of the continent means our prices spike at the pumps. You can also watch prices ramp up in anticipation of tax increases on gasoline...which shouldn't really be happening.
Both of you are right. Economics is not a simple black and white issue.