Juno News - February 02, 2024


PBO report says GST on carbon tax will cost Canadians billions

Topics
GST on carbon tax carbon tax ripoff
Mentioned
Andrew Lawton Show Danielle Smith Chris Sims Tucker Carlson Joe Manchin Rachel Motley Rachel Maddow Jason Kenney Jack Layton Paul Yev
Farmer Protest TAKES OVER all of Europe! Trudeau goes to war with Smith over parental rights

Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

181.44

Word count

2,739

Sentence count

173

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged


Summary

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

The carbon tax is the gift that keeps on giving, not for Canadian taxpayers, but certainly for shows that try to respect the Canadian taxpayers. The PBO has confirmed that the carbon tax will cost Canadians $500 million a year in 2019 alone, and that's just the first of many ways that Canadians are being fleeced by the tax on their carbon emissions.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
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 As I mentioned, we're flirting with the boundaries of time and space, if not outright pushing
00:00:14.320 them, but we are still going to keep with tradition as, well, that's what we do here
00:00:19.280 on the Andrew Lawton Show anyway, or so I've declared just now.
00:00:22.440 And on the Monday shows, we always check in with our very good friend, Chris Sims, who
00:00:26.960 is the Alberta Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
00:00:31.260 And Chris, it is always, always wonderful to talk to you.
00:00:34.680 This is, I mean, you and I, the carbon tax is the gift that keeps on giving, not for Canadian
00:00:38.660 taxpayers, but certainly for shows that try to respect the Canadian taxpayers.
00:00:44.080 This report came out late last week that the Parliamentary Budget Office, as I understand,
00:00:48.960 has confirmed, I mean, I think you could probably intuit this, but they've confirmed that it
00:00:54.020 will cost Canadians half a billion this year.
00:00:58.340 That's not the carbon tax, that's the GST on the carbon tax.
00:01:03.740 I feel like I'm misreading that number, but that's a 500 million a year just on the tax
00:01:09.180 on the tax.
00:01:10.220 That's correct.
00:01:11.320 And there's certain evergreen things that we get through email at the Taxpayers Federation.
00:01:16.820 Most of it is about accountability or somebody personally struggling with their tax load.
00:01:22.300 But one of the frequent flyers is, oh my goodness, I'm paying a tax on the tax.
00:01:29.260 Yes, you are.
00:01:30.520 So it's quite easy to see on your home heating bill, for example, or if you get propane tanks
00:01:36.840 filled up outside of your trailer, if you live in a mobile home, take a look at the receipt.
00:01:41.880 The sales tax, the GST is added after the carbon tax.
00:01:46.880 That means that the GST is on top of the carbon tax in addition to.
00:01:53.740 And so we've been preaching and teaching about this now for years, but it feels really validating
00:01:59.160 to have the Parliamentary Budget Office, which is an arm's length, independent, nonpartisan
00:02:03.940 group that is supposed to watchdog the government, saying, yes, Canadians are spending close to
00:02:10.680 half a billion dollars per year with the GST on the carbon tax.
00:02:16.820 And by the year 2030, Andrew, this made my eyes pop out.
00:02:20.140 It's going to be around a billion dollars a year.
00:02:24.580 Wow.
00:02:25.140 I mean, the idea of a tax on a tax is incredibly offensive because the point of a sales tax,
00:02:30.720 if we're going to endorse that that's a legitimate revenue collection tool for government,
00:02:35.620 is that it is taxing a good or a service of which a tax is neither.
00:02:40.380 So to tax a tax undermines it.
00:02:42.440 I mean, just go back to in Ontario, where I'm from, before we had the harmonized sales
00:02:46.420 tax, you had a PST, which was the Ontario sales tax of 8%.
00:02:50.800 And then you had the GST, which for a time was 7%.
00:02:54.880 Imagine if they did not apply those taxes simultaneously.
00:02:58.800 They put the GST on, so your $100 purchase is now $105, and then they put the PST on top
00:03:07.000 of that.
00:03:07.620 So now you're paying 8% on the 105 instead of 8% on the 100.
00:03:13.160 People would be outraged about that.
00:03:14.980 On the carbon tax, I think the government's trying to just conceal this from people because
00:03:18.640 there is no real justification for it.
00:03:20.920 Yes, exactly.
00:03:21.940 To really put it like, okay, if I bought this piece, this roll of tape, okay, at the store,
00:03:26.780 I pay, not in Alberta, I don't pay a provincial sales tax, but I pay 5% federal sales tax because
00:03:33.660 this is an object in time and space.
00:03:36.220 So if that was $1, you pay $1.05 because of that 5% GST.
00:03:40.120 Correct.
00:03:40.680 But a tax is just this amorphous, blood-sucking action of government.
00:03:46.800 And they're now taxing you on that tax.
00:03:49.840 In fact, a lot of people ask us, isn't this illegal?
00:03:53.060 It sure feels illegal.
00:03:54.200 It sure feels unfair and unconstitutional.
00:03:56.780 I personally would love to see a clear declaration or a ruling coming from a high court somewhere
00:04:02.440 saying you cannot tax on a tax.
00:04:05.280 I think what they're trying to get around here is that the government tries to call this
00:04:10.020 a carbon pricing mechanism or a pollution reduction mechanism.
00:04:15.120 We had part of that fight at the Supreme Court a few months ago.
00:04:18.660 Is this really a tax?
00:04:20.100 Well, anybody who's paying the carbon tax certainly knows that this is a tax.
00:04:24.200 And now, again, having the PBO come out and say in cold dollars and cents, this is how
00:04:30.700 much people are paying.
00:04:32.160 This should have people outraged.
00:04:34.280 They should be emailing their member of parliament, phoning their member of parliament saying,
00:04:38.080 how dare you be fleecing us for an extra half billion dollars per year so you can go wasted
00:04:44.640 on some nonsense like hockey rinks or overseas trips on a tax. 0.94
00:04:49.680 It's gross.
00:04:50.800 And so people should definitely speak up.
00:04:52.580 I find right now that the opposition is very susceptible and very open to listening to
00:04:59.000 people when it comes to affordability and tax ripoffs.
00:05:02.200 So now is the time to get your opposition MPs up in arms over this stuff to make them commit
00:05:08.180 to scrapping this stuff once they're in government, if they become government.
00:05:11.700 Yeah.
00:05:11.900 I mean, obviously, this is an explicit tax on a tax here.
00:05:15.200 But there's also a more hidden and admittedly more oblique tax on a tax because the whole
00:05:21.400 point of the carbon tax is that it increases the price of everything.
00:05:24.660 There are a lot of down market carbon taxes that are baked in.
00:05:28.060 So, for example, if you buy an orange from the grocery store that had to be shipped there
00:05:32.140 and the vessel and the truck that had to ship you those oranges, they had to pay more in
00:05:37.180 fuel.
00:05:37.460 Well, that carbon tax that they paid is buried in the apple driving up that price.
00:05:42.160 And then again, the sales tax on that increased price.
00:05:44.540 So the point of that is not to just confuse people, but to say it compounds.
00:05:48.700 I mean, at every level of the supply chain that has a carbon tax that it has to pay, that's
00:05:55.280 all getting passed to the consumer.
00:05:56.840 And then the sales tax is getting put on all of that.
00:05:59.520 Yes, exactly.
00:06:00.860 As Andrew just explained, folks, keep like picture it in your mind.
00:06:03.820 Grocery costs, I realize, aren't always sales tax, but the point stands generally.
00:06:08.240 Oh, for sure.
00:06:08.940 Because you've baked in the carbon tax there, for sure.
00:06:11.460 So like picture an apple coming from the Okanagan of British Columbia, okay?
00:06:16.040 Picture that person who has to drive there when they're picking it, paying the carbon tax.
00:06:20.240 And now keep in mind that quite often we'll use barns, right?
00:06:23.960 If you're a farmer, say you've got a poultry barn or a pork barn, farmers right now still
00:06:29.960 need to pay the carbon tax on their barn heating, and they have to pay it for drying their grain.
00:06:35.900 What eats grain?
00:06:36.980 Well, everything, okay?
00:06:38.600 There's the baseline of your food chain where the carbon tax kicks in.
00:06:42.620 And now you add the trucking to the grocery store.
00:06:45.040 Now add the natural gas to keep the lights on and the heat running or the air conditioning
00:06:49.320 running at the grocery store.
00:06:50.860 Now add the carbon tax of driving there.
00:06:53.400 And that's not even including trains.
00:06:55.360 A lot of people forget that our trains, which haul so many things across our country, use
00:07:01.100 diesel for locomotive fuel.
00:07:03.300 That is also carbon taxed.
00:07:05.680 So this is where you're getting this layer cake from hell when it comes to the carbon tax.
00:07:09.980 And so this is why it's really important that the parliamentary budget officer has done two
00:07:13.820 very good things mathematically here.
00:07:16.080 Again, the CTF has been sounding the alarm for years, but coming from an independent watchdog
00:07:20.600 like this is so valuable, even with the rebates factored in, the average family in Alberta for
00:07:28.320 the year 2024 is going to be out more than $900 this year.
00:07:34.880 Net.
00:07:35.760 That is net.
00:07:37.020 And that is relating to everything Andrew and I just described.
00:07:40.460 Of all that layer cake coming from the carbon tax and applying it to the average family in
00:07:46.080 Alberta, you're out almost a thousand bucks.
00:07:49.520 And again, that's with those rebates factored in.
00:07:52.180 The very idea that we could give money to the government and they could magically somehow
00:07:57.800 increase its wealth and make it worth more and give more back than you pay in is nonsense.
00:08:03.300 But to have the PBO do these two things of pointing out the net cost of the carbon tax
00:08:07.880 and the GST ripoff on top of the carbon tax is really important.
00:08:12.540 And in fact, we'd like to see all parties get on board with this.
00:08:16.440 A little note, we're noticing some movement at the provincial level from the NDP.
00:08:21.880 We're seeing, for example, in Saskatchewan, the opposition NDP saying, you know what,
00:08:26.480 we shouldn't be carbon taxed on our home heating.
00:08:28.800 We're seeing Wob Canu, the NDP premier of Manitoba saying very similar things and fully
00:08:34.240 suspending his provincial.
00:08:35.440 Oh, I mean, look, when the government's carve out for Atlantic Canada was one of its biggest
00:08:40.860 tactical blunders because they had basically beaten the provinces into submission on the
00:08:46.200 carbon tax.
00:08:46.960 And then when they did that, all of a sudden, everyone who had an NDP government in Manitoba
00:08:51.140 and even, you know, NDP leaners in Alberta, Saskatchewan were looking at their leaders
00:08:54.600 being like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up.
00:08:56.400 Why do they get a pass on this?
00:08:59.360 Jack Layton, the late leader of the federal NDP, said it would be wrong to punish people
00:09:05.580 with a carbon tax on their home heating fuel.
00:09:08.240 Folks should go back and read that, including sitting members of parliament within the NDP
00:09:12.320 who are propping up this government and supporting home heating fuel carbon taxes.
00:09:17.500 I wanted to turn to a bit of a better story here.
00:09:20.980 I began the show talking about this climate change free speech trial I'm covering in Washington,
00:09:25.840 D.C. this week.
00:09:26.580 But we have this vilification of the oil and gas sector by a lot of sectors of the Canadian
00:09:32.940 political establishment, certainly by the federal government and by many in the media.
00:09:38.640 Well, it was a bit refreshing for Alberta Premier Danielle Smith to declare that she wanted to
00:09:45.100 double oil production in Alberta.
00:09:47.700 She did this in her sit down with Tucker Carlson last week.
00:09:50.840 I think it was in Edmonton.
00:09:51.980 It might have been in Calgary or it might have been both for all I know.
00:09:54.300 But a really, really bold plan here.
00:09:57.060 Now, first off, can the Premier make that commitment?
00:10:00.780 Sure, if she wants to.
00:10:02.440 So the government doesn't, you know, we don't have crown corporations that are solely monopolistically
00:10:08.260 pulling oil out of the ground or mining it as bitumen.
00:10:12.260 But if so, it would never make it out.
00:10:14.120 Could you imagine?
00:10:14.880 You know, forget it.
00:10:15.600 They would they would get into squabbles and yeah, it wouldn't work.
00:10:18.040 So she can declare this as a goal and say that's what she wants to see and encourage
00:10:23.500 private companies to just go for it here.
00:10:26.720 The problem here, though, is how much of an obstacle is the federal government going to
00:10:31.380 make of itself?
00:10:32.680 We've already seen that the government fully thinks that they have full control over natural
00:10:37.320 resources in Alberta and we're just supposed to bow to their bidding.
00:10:41.260 Spoiler alert.
00:10:42.060 That's not true.
00:10:42.940 And we recently had a great Supreme Court decision on the pipelines issue there, too.
00:10:47.360 It was in Alberta's favour.
00:10:48.640 So for her to say that is great.
00:10:51.100 And it also inspires confidence in companies because, of course, they want to come here
00:10:55.440 and then do business.
00:10:56.560 Or if they're already here, they want to realise that they have a pro-business premier and they
00:11:02.140 want to do more business.
00:11:03.500 Again, though, the devil's always in the details.
00:11:05.780 Can we actually get this happening without the federal government trying to strangle us?
00:11:11.640 What I just like from a tactical point of view is how much attention that gets.
00:11:18.460 So for her to sit there with somebody with the reach of Tucker Carlson and obviously triggering
00:11:25.220 the reactions of some members of parliament and ministers in the federal government to
00:11:30.980 the point where they have to hold a press conference.
00:11:33.080 I actually heard, by the way, I don't know if you saw this, Andrew, I actually heard
00:11:37.920 it was an NDP strategist say that he should have been stopped at the border.
00:11:43.720 Like, prevented from coming into Canada.
00:11:46.060 Like, whoa.
00:11:47.120 Yeah.
00:11:47.800 Well, yeah, it's the Emergencies Act approach, basically.
00:11:50.720 We don't like what they're going to say, so let's just use these weird legal tools to
00:11:54.300 prevent them from saying it.
00:11:56.060 But just use a thought process experiment here.
00:11:58.560 Imagine Rachel Motley is still leader of the NDP.
00:12:02.100 Imagine she invites MSNBC's Rachel Maddow up to Alberta and they have a talk and there's 0.65
00:12:08.900 people that come to the arena and they listen to, I don't know, solar blenders and e-bikes
00:12:12.880 and whatever it is they want to talk about.
00:12:14.940 Can you imagine like people saying she should be stopped at the border?
00:12:18.580 Like, I don't care if you agree with the person saying that's the whole point of free
00:12:22.180 expression.
00:12:23.080 But to say somebody should be stopped at the border really opened my eyes quite a bit.
00:12:27.640 So I think this is part of the reason why Premier Smith made that statement.
00:12:32.960 Yeah, I'm inclined to agree.
00:12:34.940 And look, when I was in Davos, not this year, but last year, I ran into Joe Manchin, who's
00:12:40.160 a senator who is a Democrat in West Virginia, but he's the most right-leaning Democrat, certainly
00:12:46.740 on energy issues.
00:12:47.680 He was one Jason Kenney brought him up to tour the oil sands.
00:12:50.860 And I had spoken about that.
00:12:52.740 And he was saying, Senator Manchin, like, yeah, you know, I would love it if the United
00:12:56.260 States were saying we want to buy all this Canadian oil.
00:12:58.940 So that's the real danger here is that you have a Premier, Daniel Smith, who's saying,
00:13:03.440 yes, let's get it to market.
00:13:04.600 You've got buyers out there.
00:13:06.300 But you have these, I mean, to appropriate Paul Yev's term, these gatekeepers, both at
00:13:10.780 the Canadian government federally, the provincial government in BC and provincial government
00:13:14.440 in Quebec that are doing everything they can to landlock Canadian energy.
00:13:18.020 They are.
00:13:19.700 And for the folks who are watching this, for whom emissions is their key issue, like it
00:13:25.620 keeps them up at night, this is actually one of the best paths to reducing global emissions.
00:13:32.020 So the United States of America reduced its emissions without carbon taxes.
00:13:38.380 They did so largely by expanding natural gas production, which has far fewer emissions than
00:13:45.080 other forms of fuel.
00:13:46.140 And again, this is something Premier Smith has said independently.
00:13:49.200 This is something other political leaders have said independently.
00:13:52.180 Places like India are desperately asking to purchase our natural gas.
00:13:57.700 And that will also have the great benefit of reducing their very heavy global emissions.
00:14:03.840 So this is the non-carbon tax path forward to doing that exactly.
00:14:09.360 And as a great side bonus, you're employing lots of Canadians under very strong labor laws
00:14:15.220 and very strong environmental laws.
00:14:17.020 So it was really interesting to see her smile and say, yeah, let's double the production.
00:14:22.380 I think she was trying to provoke a little bit more conversation there.
00:14:27.200 Yeah, fair enough.
00:14:28.280 And she certainly did it.
00:14:29.480 I mean, all of the people that were, you know, clutching their pearls about how dare she 1.00
00:14:32.700 take the stage with a guy that filled out two stadia there was actually like they weren't even debating
00:14:39.620 and discussing the things that she was saying there, because I think there was nothing
00:14:43.340 uncontroversial.
00:14:44.300 And if you're in Alberta and your lifeblood is the thriving of that sector, absolutely.
00:14:48.940 You're like, yeah, come on.
00:14:49.960 I'm all in on this.
00:14:51.080 So, all right.
00:14:51.780 Well, great to talk to you as always.
00:14:53.320 Chris Sims, we will check in with you next week.
00:14:55.240 But my pleasure.
00:14:56.240 Thank you.
00:14:56.600 Have fun.
00:14:57.940 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:15:00.300 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.