Juno News - Will Trudeau back down on the carbon tax？

00:00:00.000 you're tuned in to the andrew lawton show

00:00:05.920 and justin trudeau is saying it's his way or the highway except there's no highway because

00:00:14.040 stephen gilbo wants to effectively ban roads so uh tough for all of us here let's delve into this

00:00:19.380 with colin craig he is the president of secondstreet.org which does a lot of tremendous

00:00:23.580 work on health care which is i think at its core a federalism debate that takes place and i know

00:00:28.880 he's also done work on carbon taxes and the like as well colin good to talk to you thanks for coming

00:00:34.260 on today just before we delve into the meat of the carbon tax stuff what do you make of this

00:00:39.540 fractured relationship between provinces and the government we're not just talking here about

00:00:43.740 you know one lone renegade western premier that is having difficulty with the trudeau policy

00:00:48.980 you've got seven of ten premiers representing the majority of the population and of the provinces

00:00:54.660 that are saying to the government stop doing this thing well look it's always interesting and

00:01:00.960 entertaining when a policy you think is a failure uh starts to fail and everyone can see it uh at

00:01:07.680 least almost everyone i mean it at its core the carbon tax is bad public policy there's no doubt

00:01:13.160 about it the way that the federal government has gone about this it's bad public policy it's failing i

00:01:17.740 think most politicians uh are able to smell that out they can see it's bad policy it's it's not a

00:01:24.060 good decision and so they're rebelling like you said at the provincial level you've got all these

00:01:27.960 premiers you said seven i think there's a case to argue that lob canoes so maybe seven and a half

00:01:33.580 eight because uh i mean he's basically rejected the policy by cutting their own provincial uh gas tax to

00:01:41.020 give manitobans some breathing room there so you know i think you've got most politicians in the

00:01:47.700 country realizing and saying this is a bad policy you got to back away from it canadians are struggling

00:01:52.980 right now businesses are struggling certainly many of them are um and yet you've got the prime minister

00:01:58.680 just going full steam ahead on a really uh bad policy it's bad politics too andrew i mean look he's down

00:02:05.520 and out in the polls he's way behind uh cost of living is the number one issue and he just keeps

00:02:11.680 raising taxes like it's a bad bad decision politically it's bad economically um it is what

00:02:18.940 it is now well and look i i ran for office once previously and one of the things that uh that really

00:02:25.320 stood out to me was that of all the you know thousands and thousands of doors i knocked on and

00:02:29.320 people i spoke to when i asked you know what your number one issue was uh only one person out of i

00:02:34.260 think 22 000 doors said environment and that's not to say it's not an issue that matters it's not to

00:02:39.480 say it's an issue that matters to people but it tends to be issues like that in my experience tend

00:02:44.860 to be secondary when your house is on fire and by that i mean your economic house when you can't

00:02:50.740 afford groceries when you can't afford to fill up your car a lot of these things look like luxury items

00:02:55.460 and i i think it would be reasonable for the government to say listen we think that uh just to use

00:03:00.440 their own framing for a moment i think that uh climate is really important i think carbon tax is

00:03:05.820 the best way to get there however i realize that right now canadians are struggling we're going to

00:03:10.920 just put a pause on this while still committing to the overall policy and objective but the issue is

00:03:15.560 they know if they do that they're going to have to be the ones that reintroduce it at a certain point

00:03:19.080 but you're you're right that it's bad politics also because right now you have seven seven and a

00:03:24.020 half fingers pointing at the federal government saying you guys are the reason that people are having to

00:03:29.780 deal with this increase and that's not something they had when they first sold this policy no it's

00:03:34.900 not i mean let's step back for a second here when is the prime minister in this country created a tax

00:03:40.340 for everyone else but himself i mean there's probably only a handful of people in this country that don't

00:03:47.020 really have to pay the carbon tax the prime minister why because you and i and all your viewers and

00:03:53.940 all the taxpayers in this country pay to heed his residence so he's not paying the carbon tax

00:03:59.240 when he has to heed his residence uh he's not filling up any car at the pumps like the rest of

00:04:05.100 us right he gets chauffeured around someone's always paying for his transportation doesn't have to pay

00:04:10.280 for their i mean taxpayers pay i believe for some of his groceries and meals and so forth so he's

00:04:15.800 essentially created this tax that he doesn't have to pay everyone else does and and so that could be

00:04:21.920 part of why he doesn't understand why so many people are upset never mind the fact that he's making

00:04:26.500 close to 400 000 a year he's got a golden pension and so forth i mean he's not feeling this issue the

00:04:32.460 same way that everyday canadians are his cabinet certainly isn't either i mean they're extremely

00:04:37.360 well paid again golden pension and so forth they don't have to feel that but you know i think media

00:04:43.580 need to maybe point that out to him the second thing is why i think this is failing is just look at

00:04:48.520 his own behavior right i mean since he declared a climate emergency in parliament he's traveled to

00:04:55.920 costa rica twice he's traveled down to jamaica twice he's flown to montana he's gone to tofino a

00:05:03.220 couple times like i mean he's flying all over the place in the government's private jet and i don't

00:05:09.100 think anyone can begrudge a prime minister for wanting to have some vacation time but he is saying

00:05:15.080 that there's a climate emergency and he is routinely getting into an airplane flying all over

00:05:21.520 the place and creating all kinds of unnecessary emissions by his own standard so i mean he is just

00:05:28.660 demonstrating that the carbon tax has failed or else he would have changed his own behavior and he

00:05:32.940 hasn't so yeah and that's the problem is that there tends to be from defenders of the carbon tax a

00:05:39.300 significant overstatement of how many of these carbon emitting things are are uh are optional or

00:05:46.400 elective for people i mean if you live in the country and you've got to drive your kids to school

00:05:50.980 uh 50 50 minutes or something or if you have to drive to work a certain distance or if you need to buy

00:05:57.900 groceries for your family i mean these are not discretionary things so uh the average canadian is

00:06:03.080 forced to just look at the increased price and say okay i guess i'm paying that and not say

00:06:07.420 maybe i'm only going to drive three quarters of the way to school this morning yeah i mean you're

00:06:12.740 exactly right you talked about manitoba before i'm from there originally i mean it gets extremely

00:06:17.800 freezing cold in the winter it's not like you can as you just know you can't just go yeah maybe we'll

00:06:22.920 go without heat this winter no you'll die you'll die if you don't have proper heat in in manitoba in

00:06:29.540 the winter i mean we just for our tv show we did an episode on heat pumps recently and people keep

00:06:33.780 talking about heat pumps very fascinating technology uh maybe it gets better in the future

00:06:38.940 but you're not surviving in manitoba all winter on a heat pump it just won't work you need to have that

00:06:45.600 natural gas component maybe a heat pump can help a bit but we're not there i mean we need these things

00:06:51.760 like natural gas to heat our homes we need things like gasoline to power our vehicles and so forth i mean

00:06:58.100 the idea that we're all switching to electric cars anytime soon that's that's fantasy um they cost

00:07:04.720 a fortune and you know a lot of households are struggling right now to get by and never mind

00:07:10.040 having to drop fifty thousand dollars or whatever on an electric car right this doesn't add up andrew

00:07:15.460 no it certainly does not colin craig from secondstreet.org great work there i i wanted to ask you briefly

00:07:22.860 uh just while i had you here about mark holland uh because i know this way he he got under your uh

00:07:27.640 under your skin this past week i think he did yeah i mean he's just is another example i think of how

00:07:34.280 the elite in this country are often detached from everyday people i mean if you're a politician

00:07:38.380 you got a lot of money and resources if you ever face a long wait time in the health care system you

00:07:43.820 can go abroad you don't have to worry about it he was kind of poo-pooing people that do that and and 0.65

00:07:48.740 saying like it's it's not necessary we can't allow that to happen in canada blah blah blah

00:07:52.560 but reality is a lot of people are suffering in this country it's not just the wealthy that are

00:07:58.600 going abroad i mean we're talking all the time with middle-income people who are doing it

00:08:02.540 they're suffering they're living with chronic chronic pain and people can't do that for a year

00:08:07.540 or two it's inhumane so we need health reform we need a mature discussion about this in this country

00:08:13.460 to see start to see these reforms happen and ottawa's approach is let's just throw more money at the

00:08:18.520 health care system and hope things work out and it's not adding up i mean you've got to move beyond

00:08:24.560 this simply throwing money at the system stage and mark holland i don't think it's the minister to

00:08:29.100 to take us there colin craig thank you very much sir thanks andrew always appreciate the chat

00:08:34.400 thanks for listening to the andrew lawton show support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news

Juno News - March 18, 2024

Will Trudeau back down on the carbon tax？

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