Juno News - March 10, 2024


Canadians are sick of Trudeau’s carbon tax


Episode Stats

Length

10 minutes

Words per Minute

187.96255

Word Count

1,981

Sentence Count

85

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Now, I realize when I just mentioned that like all of my guests end up running as conservative
00:00:12.880 candidates, that's like an awfully big, an awfully big setup to my next guest, Franco
00:00:17.120 Terrazzano, who is the federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
00:00:20.980 Franco, any announcements from you today?
00:00:24.180 Absolutely not, other than the fact that Canadians are furious with the government raising
00:00:29.480 carbon taxes.
00:00:30.700 That's the only announcement today, Andrew.
00:00:33.220 Well, and that's a big one.
00:00:34.600 And I will say, Pierre Paliyev yesterday in his endorsement of Jamil and his congratulations
00:00:39.920 today said, I think it was the first thing he mentioned, that Jamil is going to help him
00:00:44.040 axe the tax.
00:00:45.040 So you don't want to extrapolate too much from by-elections, but when you look at how much
00:00:50.060 the Liberals have been doubling down and tripling down on the carbon tax, and you look at where
00:00:53.980 they are in their polls, it's clear that Canadians are not happy with this.
00:00:58.300 Yeah, Canadians are sick and tired of the federal government in Ottawa making our lives more
00:01:03.860 expensive.
00:01:04.580 And that's exactly what the carbon tax does.
00:01:06.740 Not only does it make our lives more expensive, it makes the necessities of life more expensive.
00:01:11.600 It makes it more expensive for you to fuel up your car, to get to work, to go to see the
00:01:16.800 in-laws, it makes it more expensive for you to heat your home during the cold winter months,
00:01:20.640 and it makes it more expensive for you to put food on your family's table because the
00:01:25.040 carbon tax taxes the farmer, taxes the trucker, and therefore you pay higher bills.
00:01:30.120 And look at these poll numbers that the CTF just released.
00:01:33.340 About seven in 10 Canadians are against the Trudeau government's upcoming carbon tax hike.
00:01:38.800 And no matter how you slice the numbers, every single demographic, age, gender, income level,
00:01:44.580 education level, they're all, vast majority of Canadians against the carbon tax hike.
00:01:49.340 And no matter which province they're in, again, the vast majority of Canadians are against the
00:01:54.020 carbon tax hike.
00:01:54.780 So Canadians are united in the fact that we're furious about the government making our lives
00:01:59.480 more expensive.
00:02:00.420 The only question now is, are Trudeau and his Liberal MPs going to listen to Canadians,
00:02:05.280 or are they going to keep cranking up their carbon tax?
00:02:08.800 You know, to force you into a bit of a pundit role for a moment here, Franco, one of the
00:02:13.060 things that I find the Liberals did that was incredibly short-sighted was offer that exemption
00:02:18.480 on home heating oil that carve out to Atlantic Canada.
00:02:21.920 Now, I think it's the right thing to give Canadians relief on the carbon tax.
00:02:25.220 And I think they should have done it to every single region, every type of home heating,
00:02:28.820 not just home heating oil.
00:02:30.080 But when they did that, it was a strategic blunder because all of a sudden, every government
00:02:35.080 in the country, including the NDP in Manitoba, conservatives elsewhere were like, whoa, whoa,
00:02:40.520 whoa, hold up here.
00:02:41.920 Like, on one hand, you're positioning this as being this panacea for the climate woes.
00:02:46.100 And then on the other hand, you're saying, okay, yeah, we can give a little exemption
00:02:49.380 here and there.
00:02:51.080 Well, it was a strategic blunder, right?
00:02:53.440 Not just for the reason that you bring up, but for the reason that it proves that the
00:02:57.400 carbon tax does make life more expensive, right?
00:03:00.320 Otherwise, why would Trudeau take the carbon tax off of furnace oil for three years, right?
00:03:05.960 So there, the Trudeau government, their talking point is, oh, don't worry.
00:03:10.380 The rebates make you better off.
00:03:12.020 Don't worry, folks.
00:03:12.980 Somehow the government will magically put more money in your pocket than it takes.
00:03:17.060 Now, Canadians never bought that idea, right?
00:03:19.780 And the reason Canadians saw through that talking point is because it's impossible to bring
00:03:25.140 in a carbon tax, charge the sales tax on top of the carbon tax, skim hundreds of millions
00:03:30.880 of dollars off the top to pay for bureaucrats to administer the carbon tax, and then somehow
00:03:36.080 make everyone better off with rebates.
00:03:38.780 That's impossible.
00:03:39.680 Canadians, all Canadians outside of the Ottawa bubble understand that.
00:03:43.660 But the strategic blunder on that is that Trudeau essentially made it obvious himself
00:03:51.560 when he announced that they're providing relief by taking the carbon tax off of one form of
00:03:56.200 heating energy, right?
00:03:57.240 Because if the carbon tax didn't make that heating energy more expensive, then why would
00:04:02.180 Trudeau provide that relief in the first place?
00:04:04.420 Now, to your point earlier, it's good that some Canadians are getting relief, but he's leaving
00:04:09.440 97% of Canadians out in the cold.
00:04:11.960 So the only fair thing to do would have been to just provide that relief to every Canadian.
00:04:16.280 And of course, we'd like to see him go a step further and just completely scrap the carbon
00:04:20.720 tax altogether.
00:04:22.460 Yeah, and that's the one thing I've always pointed out on this is that the Supreme Court,
00:04:26.460 I think, made the wrong decision on this when it adjudicated a few years back whether the
00:04:30.940 federal government had the jurisdiction to do this.
00:04:33.560 But even with that, there's always the political option, which is a government coming in and
00:04:38.200 saying, we are going to get rid of the carbon tax.
00:04:40.700 And this has become a flagship issue for the conservatives.
00:04:44.480 I mean, even some new Democrats, I think, are getting a little bit stronger on this issue,
00:04:49.240 certainly provincially in Alberta and Manitoba, and I believe Saskatchewan.
00:04:54.120 I might be wrong on that.
00:04:56.520 But at a certain point, do you think that's going to be a mobilizing issue for voters when
00:05:00.560 we are dealing with a cost of living crisis?
00:05:03.200 Yes, of course.
00:05:04.600 I mean, dude, it's like the price of a jug of milk, of hamburger meat has gone through
00:05:10.060 I'm in Ontario.
00:05:10.780 We do bags.
00:05:11.980 Bag of milk.
00:05:12.820 Right.
00:05:13.020 I saw that the bag of milk era is coming to an end.
00:05:15.220 And maybe I misread that, but I saw that come across my Twitter feed.
00:05:18.760 But you know the point, right?
00:05:20.140 I mean, just the basic necessities of living in Canada are getting more expensive.
00:05:24.760 And one of the reasons for that is the carbon tax.
00:05:28.160 And another thing, too, is when people are seeing their grocery bills rise, their gas
00:05:31.900 bills rise, their heating bills rise.
00:05:34.100 It's pretty easy to just look south of the border where even a new Democrat-run White
00:05:40.020 House doesn't have a national carbon tax, right?
00:05:43.240 Pretty easy to look south of the border.
00:05:45.040 Also, the vast majority of countries don't have a national carbon tax.
00:05:49.380 Canada now has two national carbon taxes, right?
00:05:53.280 So Canadians, not only are they seeing the cost of living going up, but they're saying,
00:05:56.260 hey, hold on a second.
00:05:56.980 How does making it more expensive for me to fuel up my sedan or to heat my home or to
00:06:02.140 buy groceries, how does that reduce emissions in places like China, India, Russia, or the
00:06:07.060 United States?
00:06:08.140 I mean, it obviously doesn't.
00:06:09.900 So, you know, not that I'm a political pundit, but I think it's pretty clear that the key
00:06:14.040 economic issue facing Canadians right now is the cost of living.
00:06:17.000 And the carbon tax makes all of the necessities of living more expensive here in Canada.
00:06:21.620 Did you follow this morality accusation in Saskatchewan?
00:06:27.180 So Saskatchewan has been like, you know, Alberta protesting the carbon tax.
00:06:31.720 They've said they're just not going to submit the carbon tax money, which is like a great
00:06:35.140 trump card because the federal government really can't do anything with it if the money's not
00:06:39.020 being submitted.
00:06:40.320 But then you had Stephen Gilbeau say that it's immoral to do this.
00:06:45.560 Well, what about making people's lives more expensive when they're already lining up at food
00:06:49.160 banks?
00:06:50.400 You know, how about that?
00:06:51.620 Or just Canadians who are stressing out about getting their natural gas bill, right?
00:06:58.400 Or what about the farmers who work so hard to feed us and the carbon taxes on natural
00:07:03.180 gas and propane is going to cost them a billion dollars by 2030?
00:07:06.820 Well, what about that?
00:07:07.820 You know, I think that's wrong.
00:07:09.480 But on the point about Saskatchewan, look, Scott Moe's heart is in the right place, right?
00:07:14.080 It's good to see a premier come off the bench and actually stick up for his constituents.
00:07:18.240 Now, I'm not going to talk about the legal issue here.
00:07:20.120 I'll leave that for the legal beagles, the people who are smarter than I am.
00:07:23.420 But what I do know is that it's good to see premiers pushing back against this federal
00:07:28.120 tax.
00:07:29.100 And, you know, Trudeau, he's in the wrong here.
00:07:31.540 Like, what did Trudeau think was going to happen when he did that political ploy, clearly political
00:07:37.300 ploy, when he had a press conference with his Atlantic caucus announcing that he would
00:07:42.140 take the carbon tax off of furnace oil while leaving 97% of Canadians out in the cold?
00:07:46.400 Like, what did you think was going to happen?
00:07:48.100 Of course, this was going to happen.
00:07:49.280 But let me just illustrate the point that outside of Ottawa, fuel tax relief is a nonpartisan
00:07:55.380 issue, right?
00:07:56.280 Everyone knows Alberta, Ontario, the conservative governments there provided fuel tax relief,
00:08:01.080 but also the NDP government in Manitoba completely suspended its fuel tax.
00:08:07.180 The liberal government in Newfoundland and Labrador has also provided significant income tax or
00:08:12.260 significant fuel tax relief.
00:08:13.740 So while Ottawa has been cranking up our gas taxes, you have a bunch of governments across
00:08:19.760 Canada, regardless of party stripes, doing the right thing and providing fuel tax relief.
00:08:26.640 So one question I'll ask you in closing here on this, Franco, is where you see this going?
00:08:31.860 Because I know that I think you and I, it might have been Chris and I or all, I mean, not that
00:08:35.420 you, I don't view you and Chris Sims interchangeably, but you're both so witty and intelligent.
00:08:40.440 I sometimes get your insights crossed.
00:08:42.800 So I can't remember who it was I was talking about this with, but the rebrand, the lipstick
00:08:46.540 on a pig of the carbon tax here, do you take from all of this that that isn't sinking in
00:08:51.860 with Canadians, that they're not falling for it?
00:08:54.840 Well, you know, Trudeau's big problem with his rebrand is that Canadians aren't dumb.
00:09:00.640 Canadians know generally how much they spend for the necessities and they know generally how
00:09:06.620 much money is in their bank account, right?
00:09:09.060 This whole rebrand, this whole lipstick on the carbon tax pig is really just an insult
00:09:14.680 to our intelligence, right?
00:09:16.100 The Trudeau government appears to seem like, oh, the problem with Canadians is that they,
00:09:21.340 we, that us Canadians just don't understand their infinite wisdom in the federal government.
00:09:26.360 But the problem for them is that we do understand that the carbon tax makes our lives more expensive.
00:09:31.400 We do understand that the carbon tax is not an environmental solution.
00:09:36.120 We do understand that the vast majority of countries do not have a national carbon tax.
00:09:41.120 We do understand that Canada's economy is heavily reliant on natural resources and that these
00:09:48.680 energy taxes are particularly damaging in a big, cold, vast country that depends on these
00:09:54.620 natural resources.
00:09:55.540 So look, Trudeau seems to think, or at least this is the narrative in the media,
00:10:00.720 that Trudeau has a communications problem.
00:10:03.260 Look, the PMO's communications, it's been sloppy.
00:10:06.420 But Trudeau's real problem isn't a communications problem.
00:10:10.040 Trudeau has a carbon taxes making people's lives more expensive problem.
00:10:16.020 Franco Terrazano, federal director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
00:10:20.140 Always a pleasure, good sir.
00:10:21.200 Thanks for coming on.
00:10:22.460 Hey, thanks for having me on today, Andrew.
00:10:23.880 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:10:26.860 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.