Layered Carbon Taxes not Efficient, but Punitive

Liberals like to say that experts support the carbon tax as an effective means of controlling carbon emissions. By that, they generally mean Yale University Economist William Nordhaus. But he modelled a tax at $44/tonne (far from the $170 modelled by this government). He also indicated that a for a carbon tax to be efficient it had to be the only mechanism to apply across the economy to make things balanced. However, the Liberal Government is layering multiple taxes and regulations, including the carbon tax, the Clean Fuel Regulations, and an electricity tax.

The House of Commons held a debate specifically on the carbon tax as part of a Conservative Opposition Day. Here are some of my interventions.

A second carbon tax is about to be forced on Canadians. Another tax on clean fuel regulation is going to be imposed in July, and yet another tax on electricity is coming later. Among the Government of Canada’s many proposals, is there a tax on logging? We now know that trees store carbon and release it into the environment. Is the government policy designed for only one industry, notwithstanding the impact of other industries?

Many organizations see the deforestation happening across the world as the primary cause of the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere. In 2019, the government said that it was going to plant two billion trees over the next 10 years. It is now 2023, and the government has only planted 60 million trees. This is nowhere close on pace to reach a goal of planting two billion trees in Canada to reduce CO2 emissions.