Juno News - Canadian Taxpayers Federation says Erin O'Toole's carbon tax is a broken promise

00:00:00.000 conservative leader erin o'toole has come out with a carbon tax that rivals that of justin

00:00:15.960 trudeau he says it's not a tax but that's also what the liberals said about theirs

00:00:19.860 it is the conservative party of canada's 15 page climate change platform which and i'm gonna try to

00:00:26.980 explain this but i i was reading it and thought it sounded ridiculous when i tried saying it out

00:00:31.700 loud to a friend yesterday it sounded more ridiculous the premise of it is that every time

00:00:37.400 you buy something like fuel or maybe natural gas every time you buy hydrocarbon based fuel

00:00:43.420 money that you are putting towards the carbon tax basically instead goes towards a personal

00:00:51.320 carbon savings account which you can draw from it's not the government's money necessarily you

00:00:58.700 can draw from it but only when you want to buy green things so if you want to go and use the money in

00:01:04.620 your personal low carbon savings account to buy gas you can't do that but you can buy a bus pass

00:01:10.200 you can buy an electric car you can buy a bicycle you can buy something to retrofit your home and

00:01:16.900 make it more green so it's basically the government taking your money putting it into an account that

00:01:22.580 it says is yours but not one that you are allowed to use as though it's your money i want to break

00:01:29.340 this down with aaron woodrick who is the federal director for the canadian taxpayers federation and

00:01:34.740 joins me now aaron good to talk to you thanks very much for your time yeah thanks for having me

00:01:38.720 andrew you and i spoke a couple of weeks back i think it was when the supreme court of canada

00:01:43.720 ruled that the trudeau carbon tax was in fact constitutional and i think the prevailing

00:01:49.700 sentiment of our discussion and other areas in which i discussed this on the show was that now

00:01:54.540 it is a political issue so you need a strong opposition from a political party and the only

00:01:59.560 party that's been saying no to the carbon tax is the conservative party under aaron o'toole

00:02:04.460 does this plan that aaron o'toole put forward yesterday consequentially in your mind mean an end to

00:02:11.600 the carbon tax uh no not at all i mean if anything it's uh he's essentially saying he has now taken

00:02:18.940 the side of uh every other party in supporting a carbon tax i mean this is a this is a man that

00:02:24.840 explicitly promised that he would not have a carbon tax they're playing the same kind of word

00:02:29.580 games that the liberals are saying well it's not a tax it's a levy look you can call it whatever

00:02:33.400 you want if you are taking money from people by forces of government so they can't spend it on what

00:02:38.220 they want to spend it on that's a tax um so they can give it whatever name they want and use euphemisms

00:02:43.560 just like the trudeau liberals but the reality is they flip-flopped on this they have now switched

00:02:47.780 sides and uh you know they've got some explaining to do given they have for years railed against

00:02:52.920 exactly the sort of thing they're now proposing the tax definition is interesting and this actually

00:02:58.560 came up with the trudeau carbon tax because in that case the trudeau government uh said in court

00:03:04.040 and said in in the media that it wasn't a tax and the conservatives said it was the conservatives at

00:03:09.100 the time said we don't buy that you know verbal gymnastics that you're doing here if you're 1.00

00:03:13.380 taking money from people it's a tax but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore well people

00:03:18.640 are getting uh people are getting really caught up in these semantics but again the point i always

00:03:22.760 make is uh a lot of people try and focus on what the money is used for in sort of uh determining

00:03:28.460 whether or not it's a tax i don't view it that way i think a lot of people the relevant point

00:03:32.520 for most people is that was money i had that i could spend on whatever i wanted and now i don't

00:03:37.140 have it so it doesn't matter if i'm getting it you know back in a toolbox or if i'm getting uh you

00:03:43.520 know um services or if i'm getting something else i don't have that money to do what i wanted with so

00:03:48.920 that's the relevant point i think it's too cute uh it was cute when the liberals did it and now it's

00:03:54.340 the same with the conservatives i think most people roll their eyes at the idea that you can just

00:03:58.620 not label it a tax and somehow it will not function as a tax on people i should you know

00:04:03.840 put so many asterisks in front of this to establish that i i'm not defending the liberals but one thing

00:04:09.080 i will say is that with the trudeau carbon tax the climate action incentive rebate that they gave which

00:04:14.980 i i summarily mocked when it was introduced because you're trying to bribe people with their

00:04:19.300 own money but at least when i cashed my climate action incentive check i could spend it on whatever i

00:04:24.940 wanted oh toolbox are not fungible in the same way well that's frankly the danger that i think

00:04:30.820 mr o'toole has raised here is that he suddenly for some people made the trudeau rebates look

00:04:36.040 nice by comparison right if if they were struggling to come up with a way to compete with mr trudeau and

00:04:41.200 they basically landed on coupons or loyalty points instead of cash i mean look people like loyalty

00:04:47.580 points but they rather have cash given the choice and again i know that uh that mr o'toole says well

00:04:53.460 you know mr trudeau may keep that money well guess what you just broke a promise too so how do we know

00:04:59.040 that you might not change your mind on things later on as well i want to go back to and you mentioned

00:05:04.840 that he made a promise he didn't just say it in interviews with me but but i know actually signed

00:05:09.140 a pledge with your organization the canadian taxpayers federation and i want to put that

00:05:13.800 photo up on the screen for people to see i know you can't make out the text of it but basically what

00:05:18.540 was that pledge yeah the pledge was to scrap the trudeau carbon tax and to not introduce a similar

00:05:25.680 carbon tax or a cap and trade system so you know this is a pretty explicit that he has reversed

00:05:32.480 himself on that he's broken that pledge um and look i think that's something that he's going to have to

00:05:36.980 answer for with the people who supported him and support him now i know the loyalty program is that

00:05:42.760 you can even call it that is the main uh impetus behind this plan but but there were some other things

00:05:48.160 buried in there that i i thought were equally concerning one that jumped out at me and partially

00:05:53.540 for personal reasons because you know covering the election campaign had me flying all over the

00:05:57.960 country in in 2019 back when that was allowed uh it says studying the potential for introducing new

00:06:03.760 taxes on frequent flyers non-electric luxury vehicles and second homes to deter activities that hurt the

00:06:10.560 environment now obviously this is kind of a wink wink in a way to the left because these are

00:06:15.400 activities that are associated with with wealth and elite status and all of these things but at the

00:06:20.680 same time this is a very ostentatious usage of the word tax so they're quite open about the fact

00:06:26.060 that if you have a second home which sounds like something that is a privilege for the one percent but 0.80

00:06:30.760 there are a lot of middle class families that have family cottages or people that may have a

00:06:35.180 condo that they rent out and and are not by any means wealthy uh they may be facing new taxes

00:06:41.200 yeah well and that's our concern as an organization that fights for lower taxation is that they've opened

00:06:46.340 the door wide open to all kinds of potential new taxes and new increases for people look we we never

00:06:53.680 got into these debates because we're against fighting climate change what we're against is crippling people

00:06:59.460 and businesses and families with higher costs with newer taxes so we're not fussy you know if the end result

00:07:06.780 of a new measure is that it hammers families or businesses with higher costs then we're against it

00:07:13.640 because we think that's damaging and frankly especially in the case of these carbon taxes

00:07:17.860 we're not seeing the upside i mean everybody points to british columbia as this as the as the

00:07:23.120 sort of golden example well they've had a carbon tax there for years and emissions have not gone down

00:07:28.040 one thing as well that was a problem with the national carbon tax in addition to the tax part was

00:07:34.220 the national part and this was something that was rammed down the throats of provinces which was

00:07:38.920 really the thrust behind the challenges in court one of which ended up being found unconstitutional in

00:07:45.100 alberta but i i have to ask about this because i've read through this and there are numerous references

00:07:50.000 to working with provinces but it still is a national program and i think in a lot of ways even more

00:07:55.940 national than the trudeau approach the greenhouse gas pollution pricing act because that act says if a

00:08:02.180 province meets this emissions reduction standard the federal one doesn't kick in whereas all that

00:08:07.540 i'm seeing here is that provinces can apply basically to have their programs recognized

00:08:13.760 as equivalent and i don't know if you've had any conversations or have looked into this and

00:08:17.940 and found any areas where provinces do have explicit autonomy within this plan

00:08:22.620 no i mean i i do recall mr ortoole saying you know that it's going to be a partnership and then it's

00:08:28.960 you know they're going to work with the provinces so it sounds like they want to be flexible on it but

00:08:32.580 you know that's the same thing that mr trudeau said and he put in a backstop so if he's going to

00:08:37.080 simply replace one backstop the the rebate backstop with the loyalty points backstop i mean it's it's

00:08:43.680 essentially the same it is still ottawa dictating terms to the provinces

00:08:47.880 aaron woodrick federal director for the canadian taxpayers federation not the greatest day for for

00:08:54.240 people like you and i who have been advocating against the carbon tax for some time you especially

00:08:58.820 but i appreciate you joining me nonetheless yeah thanks for having me andrew thanks for listening

00:09:03.480 to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

00:09:10.160 you

Juno News - April 17, 2021

Canadian Taxpayers Federation says Erin O'Toole's carbon tax is a broken promise

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