Juno News - Canadians say they can’t afford Trudeau’s carbon tax

00:00:00.000 On April 1st, Canadians across the country gathered to protest the Trudeau carbon tax

00:00:06.380 and its 23% increase that comes amidst a already dire cost of living situation.

00:00:14.980 Canadians are also frustrated that while their taxes are going up, so are the salaries of

00:00:20.340 politicians. Members of Parliament are now going to be enjoying a $203,000 a year salary,

00:00:27.400 while Trudeau will be earning a $406,000 salary. For the MPs, this makes them the second highest paid

00:00:35.840 legislators in the world. Now, if they deserve to be the second highest paid legislators in the world

00:00:42.160 or not, it's not for me to decide. That's for people like you at the next election. But nevertheless,

00:00:48.040 I thought I would go down to the protests in Ottawa and speak to people, get their thoughts on what's

00:00:53.660 going on and also see how the tax has personally affected them.

00:00:57.380 Well, I'm here fighting this tax that our government is putting all on us and more rules,

00:01:03.140 more regulations, and it's just got to stop or there ain't going to be no farmers, no farmers,

00:01:09.020 no food.

00:01:10.100 If the government increases tax, which means that you have less money, you have less freedom.

00:01:15.680 When I was young, at 25, everybody at 25, we had a job and we had a house, we had a car,

00:01:25.960 we had a family. Now the people at 25, they live with their parents in the basement. They don't

00:01:33.580 even have a job and they don't expect anything good for the future.

00:01:39.840 People are already struggling heavily for everything, so we can't afford this tax. We

00:01:46.680 can't afford the raises that they're giving in Parliament right now. I mean, people are struggling.

00:01:53.960 I still think Canada is one of the greatest countries in the world, but it's very sad that

00:01:57.980 I know that my children won't be able to have the same quality of life that we had.

00:02:03.320 While at the protest, I ran into two people who offered some important insights because

00:02:10.060 they deal with people that are impacted by this tax. The first individual is Melissa McKee,

00:02:15.660 the wife of Pastor Rob McKee of the Vanier Bikers Church. You may remember them from a video I did

00:02:22.200 two years ago where I visited their church after they were targeted and we did a tour of the church

00:02:28.400 and it is quite phenomenal what they do for the community. And the other individual is Janet

00:02:34.880 Creighton who works with mushroom farmers and they both told me some pretty significant stories.

00:02:42.240 At the church, they are getting a quite significant increase in the people needing their resources,

00:02:48.640 while some of the mushroom farmers that Janet works with say that they are getting astronomical

00:02:54.640 carbon tax bills. So here's what they told me. I mean, you and your husband do a lot of great work

00:03:00.160 in the community helping people in need. Have you seen this tax impact people in your church,

00:03:06.560 you personally and people in the community? Absolutely. We looked at our tax, not our tax bill,

00:03:14.080 our hydro. No, sorry. It was the gas bill. Yeah, just the other day. And I could not believe the amount.

00:03:25.120 Just in carbon tax alone, we paid $700 a month on a $2,300 bill. So that's taking money from other places.

00:03:38.080 Our food bank, we don't even have a food bank, we have a food pantry that people donate to.

00:03:43.040 And so honestly, it's grown by, I don't even have a number of what it's grown by. We may have helped

00:03:51.120 two or three people a month before. Now we're helping people weekly, multiple people. Our drop-in has

00:04:00.080 reopened. We've got 80 plus people coming every week for a meal and to access our food pantry. We're

00:04:07.200 serving over 200 people a week in our free store, which is our secondhand store where everything's free.

00:04:12.080 So our numbers have almost doubled from last year.

00:04:16.160 And I mean, there's obviously a lot of factors in this affordability crisis. A lot of it could be

00:04:22.400 linked to the government. Do you think the carbon tax is one of the reasons why so many more people

00:04:26.800 are coming to your church for help versus in the past? Because food is more expensive, gas is more

00:04:31.840 expensive, heating is more expensive. And when you've got kids, that does add up.

00:04:35.840 Well, we're a family of five. And our grocery bill has gone up considerably in the year. And that does

00:04:44.480 directly have to do with the carbon tax. And if I think about Canada having less than 2%, contributing

00:04:51.600 less than 2%, taking into account the forests that we have, the amount of trees that we have,

00:04:58.400 are we really contributing with carbon emissions? Not enough to tax us this way.

00:05:07.680 And I think that tax, income tax, tax was supposed to be a temporary measure because of war.

00:05:16.080 And there are people like the middle class is going to be erased soon. People that used to be okay are no 0.94

00:05:23.360 longer okay. And we can't work more than two jobs because there's just not enough time in a day. Our kids

00:05:29.040 are suffering. Their education is suffering. Social lives are suffering. It's just one thing after the other,

00:05:36.160 piled on top. We don't even know what's at the bottom anymore.

00:05:39.200 Melissa, thank you very much. You work with farmers. How has it impacted them? What stories are you

00:05:46.400 hearing from farmers about the impact of this tax? Well, for example, one individual mushroom farm

00:05:53.280 just outside of Ottawa here is paying close to $200,000 for carbon tax alone. All the farmers are pretty

00:06:01.440 much saying that. We know by 2030, they're going to be paying like a billion dollars a year in carbon tax.

00:06:11.040 And what that means is the American farmers aren't paying it. So it makes our food very uncompetitive.

00:06:17.280 And the grocers will begin to ship the food in from the United States, which is a heck of a lot more

00:06:24.400 expensive for consumers. And it's also going to be worse for the environment.

00:06:28.960 So do you think this tax is actually having reverse effects? It's not actually

00:06:34.160 doing anything good. It could actually do more harm and basically not do what it's intended to do?

00:06:39.760 Yeah, more harm for the environment, sustainability, more harm for the farmers,

00:06:44.880 because it's going to be making farmers go broke. So one of the things I looked up and I'll be speaking

00:06:50.640 about later is businesses in Canada, there's 126% increase in bankruptcies for businesses. And so

00:07:02.720 that's like an unbelievable amount. And the mainstream media is not reporting that. I couldn't

00:07:07.760 find a single article saying that it was only on stats can. So I think that now farmers will be going

00:07:15.120 broke if they do not reverse and spike the hike or give some carbon tax relief because we have to get

00:07:24.000 the carbon tax off our food supply system because we're being taxed on a tax on tax again and again

00:07:29.920 throughout the supply chain. That's why the food is more expensive in Canada.

00:07:32.880 Well, Janet, thank you very much. Thank you.

00:07:35.440 I hope that you enjoyed this report. If you did, make sure you are subscribed to our channel and that

00:07:41.040 you have selected the notification bell and please visit donate.tnc.news to make a donation to support

00:07:50.000 our work because unlike the legacy media, we do not rely on government bailouts. For True North in Ottawa,

00:07:58.320 I'm Ily Quentin Nantel.

Juno News - April 05, 2024

Canadians say they can’t afford Trudeau’s carbon tax

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