Juno News - March 10, 2024


Canadians are sick of Trudeau’s carbon tax

Topics
cost of living crisis
Mentioned
Trudeau Franco Teresano Andrew Lawton Show Chris Sims Steven Guilbeault Pierre Poilievre Scott Moe Jamil
Activist doctor misleads Albertans on Smith’s gender policies Canadian farmers are FINALLY RISING UP against the government!

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

187.96

Word count

1,981

Sentence count

110

Harmful content

Toxicity

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I'm joined by the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Franco Terrazzano, to talk all things carbon tax and why it's time for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to just scrap the carbon tax.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
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 1.00
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? 0.99
00:08:54.840 Well, you know, Trudeau's big problem with his rebrand is that Canadians aren't dumb. 0.94
00:09:00.640 Canadians know generally how much they spend for the necessities and they know generally how 0.87
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.