In this episode of The Cory Morgan Show, I talk about Bill C-18, the carbon tax, and how to adapt to a changing world. I also talk about how to keep up with the times in the survey industry.
00:10:06.600Well, what's going on in the news quite a bit, Corey, with no summer doldrums yet.
00:10:11.860Our real estate expert, Mike Thomas, is leading off the website at the moment with a story on the still red-hot Calgary real estate market in June.
00:10:22.200It's at a second consecutive record, so sales are high and the prices are even higher.
00:10:29.500Columnist Herb Binder has got a look at the Alberta oil economy and what's going to be happening in the uncertain future.
00:10:40.300Two Alberta cabinet ministers have written to the feds urging that they recall parliament to end that, I guess it's three or four day long strike now by B.C. port workers.
00:10:54.060Alberta ships about $12.5 billion a year,
00:10:57.380or 9% of the provincial economy goes through the B.C. ports.
00:11:03.180So anything that drags on, Corey, is going to be a bit of a disaster
00:11:06.840for not only Alberta's economy but across the country.
00:11:12.060You've mentioned the Liberals out waving their fists at Facebook today.
00:11:17.260They've cut their $10 million worth of advertising on Facebook.
00:11:23.420so don't know how we're going to hear about how well they're what kind of job they're doing now
00:11:29.500and i think you also mentioned uh chris sims from the canadian taxpayers association
00:11:33.900uh they've put out a release today uh showing them why quebec is uh getting the lowest rate
00:11:40.220of carbon tax uh in the country uh where it's uh uh they're paying four cents less a leader
00:11:46.780than anywhere else corey so what quebec has done to deserve that uh you and i can only guess but
00:11:53.420that lots of other stuff uh our legislature reporter uh arthur green is currently covering a
00:11:59.660danielle smith press conference at the moment out at the sutina nation and they're talking about
00:12:05.580building uh drug recovery centers on uh on nation land so that's uh obviously an important
00:12:11.740issue as we're trying to battle the addiction problem in the province corey yeah well it's
00:12:16.380good to see that kind of innovation you know they're building that surgical facility up on
00:12:20.140on the Enoch Reserve and they're putting something in down in the Sutina. Look forward to finding
00:12:24.880out what the details are on that. Absolutely. And I wish Jane luck for me. I hope she sells
00:12:29.900lots of quilts. Let's see how it goes. Thanks, Dave. Thank you. All right. So that is our news
00:12:36.280editor, Dave Naylor. This is the part where I nag you guys to help us pay our bills. And that
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00:13:05.800columns. As you know, you can see the stories are breaking all the time. We are putting them out
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00:13:18.840membership, take one out. This is this kind of outlet that's going to keep hanging in there
00:13:23.580while the other ones are falling by the wayside. So yeah, you know, the big issue with this,
00:13:28.800it kind of ties into what I was ranting about before with times changing. So the longshoremen,
00:13:34.540the guys who work in the docks and the facilities on the West Coast are on strike. And you know,
00:13:39.780I looked that up. These guys, they've, they've gone on strike and been legislated back to work,
00:13:45.700let's see, in 1995, 1994, 1991, 1988, 1986, 1982, 1975, 74, 72. These guys are serial strikers,
00:13:56.900and they have us over a barrel. And I mean, this is a tough, tough deal. I mean,
00:14:02.980you know, it's a much larger conversation, I guess, to be had on how you deal with that,
00:14:06.960because organized labor, it's a right, you know, to be able to do that. But just to bear in mind,
00:14:11.560these guys are making on average, the median salary is $136,000 a year. I'm sure it's hard
00:14:17.020work working on those ports, but they're not starving, guys. That's some pretty good coin
00:14:22.080for a longshoreman. And the union says the key point still right now, their gripe is the devastation
00:14:28.400of port automation. You see, again, we're getting back to that fighting change. Yes, there's now
00:14:35.200automated things. They're unloading those C-cans, loading those trucks, dealing with inventory
00:14:40.660management, things like that. They're getting better and better. But rather than striking and
00:14:45.460just paying these guys more to do a job that's becoming obsolete, we need to be encouraging them
00:14:50.280to adapt. And that's not the way we're going. We'll see. And the chances of them being forced
00:14:57.900back to work are a little tough this time because Jagmeet Singh holds the balance of power. And
00:15:02.260he's saying, no, we aren't going to do that. We support our union buddies. So I suspect
00:15:06.320the Liberal government's going to cut these guys a big settlement or encourage one, I guess. It's
00:15:10.640not a direct government thing. Either way, we're going to see more costs due to it. You know that
00:15:15.320when you hold up product and delivery, the costs go higher. So let's talk to somebody who specializes
00:15:19.880and talk about all the other stuff that's nickel and diming us to death. And that's Chris Sims of
00:15:23.720the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. So we can chat about and celebrate our second carbon tax. Hi,
00:15:29.580Chris, how you doing? Hi, Corey. Yeah. Happy second carbon tax. Happy Canada Day. Right on
00:15:35.700July 1st, too. It's brutal. And I mean, you know, you've been warning us about this for quite a
00:15:42.820long time and people, I think, don't realize it. But I mean, once they start seeing it actually
00:15:46.980hitting their wallets, maybe they start to realize that, yes, all these initiatives cost us and
00:15:52.060they're costing a lot. Yeah, it costs us big time. So the first carbon tax is still going to be
00:15:57.700there and it is still going to triple within the next seven years so as of right now it's 14 cents
00:16:04.020a liter for gasoline 17 cents a liter for diesel so on average you're paying around 15 16 dollars
00:16:11.140extra every time you're filling up even a light duty pickup truck that's in the first carbon tax
00:16:16.500this new carbon tax the second one that's being layered on top it's actually fashioned after
00:16:21.940British Columbia's second carbon tax. Anybody who's ever driven across the Rockies over to BC
00:16:27.780and looked up at the gas pump has gone, holy crap, why is that so much more expensive? Well,
00:16:33.460two reasons. One, they don't get the discount. So Premier Daniel Smith gives us the provincial
00:16:38.120fuel tax discount here. So we're saving 13 cents right off the hop. Two, they have a second carbon
00:16:44.120tax over there, and it's a big one. It's like 15, 16 cents per liter extra. So Prime Minister
00:16:50.800Justin Trudeau, not kidding, took a look at BC and said, huh, that's super awesome. I'm going to do
00:16:56.800that to the whole country. And so as of July 1st, he's now imposed this government fuel regulation,
00:17:03.540which penalizes companies for the carbon content of their product. Now, we don't know how much it's
00:17:10.140going to cost right out of the chute, right? Because it takes a while. So the company gets
00:17:14.300the cost incurred. They then try to compensate. Some of them might use more ethanol for a little
00:17:19.320while in their blend, blah, blah, blah. Eventually though, that cost is going to trickle down
00:17:25.160to you and me at the gas pump, and we're going to pay for it. So within the next seven years,
00:17:30.760the parliamentary budget officer says the second carbon tax is going to cost around 14 cents extra
00:17:37.020per liter of gasoline, around 17 cents extra per liter for diesel. Long story short, Albertan
00:17:43.300families are going to get hit the hardest. Within the next seven years, Corey, we're going to be
00:17:48.380out around $3,900 per Alberta family. That's with rebates factored in. That's net cost of Trudeau's
00:17:57.340two carbon taxes. But I mean, they're giving it back to us, right? We get rebates and they just
00:18:01.840announced, you know, they're going to give us a bunch of breaks on our grocery bills, right? Like
00:18:04.980it's just cycles through the government and we all win. Yeah, sure. If only it worked like that.
00:18:09.740So two things. It's almost insulting for the federal government to think that people are
00:18:15.840silly enough to think that the government is a magical wealth producing machine. It's not. All
00:18:21.960it does is take your money, run it through a bureaucracy and spit it back at you sometimes.
00:18:27.660So number one, that cost I just listed was net. That's with the rebates factored in. That's $3,900
00:18:34.560with that factored in. So you're out that amount as an Alberta family. Two, just don't take the
00:18:41.740money in the first place, right? If this is all supposed to make you magically more wealthy,
00:18:47.060then why are they doing this? The fact is, is they're fibbing. They're not telling the truth.
00:18:52.020They want gasoline and diesel and natural gas and propane to be unaffordable. That's the feature,
00:18:58.500not the bug. So every time the politician at the federal government level opens their mouths
00:19:02.840and says, oh, you're going to get more back than you pay in. Number one, that's not true.
00:19:06.300number two that contradicts their entire purpose of their carbon tax which is meant to punish you
00:19:12.460for using oil and gas and it's not working that's the other thing i mean bc has been carbon taxing
00:19:18.420for a long time you were out there until recently and i remember you guys would report on that
00:19:23.160emissions have been dropped in bc if a candidate if a carbon tax was going to work it would have
00:19:28.560started working by now 100 so this is where you know as somebody i grew up in the interior mostly
00:19:34.400but I spent some of my formative years on Vancouver Island. I get it. I've wandered
00:19:38.960around barefoot on Gulf Islands. I would describe myself as a small e-environmentalist. I pick up
00:19:43.720litter every time I'm walking near the river. It's not helping the environment. To slow that down,
00:19:51.080British Columbia has had the two highest carbon taxes in North America for years.
00:19:56.840their emissions keep on going up anyway. This is the government's own data, okay? Now, apart from
00:20:05.380when people were locked in their homes and stuff at the beginning of 2020 where you saw a dip,
00:20:09.580other than those weird moments, it goes up and up and up steadily. Why? Because, like you know and
00:20:16.520all your viewers know, people need to drive to work, they need to heat their home, and they need
00:20:21.320eat food. They don't have an affordable alternative dependable energy source to switch to. This isn't
00:20:29.640like paper bags or plastic bags. There's nothing for them to switch to. They have to drive to work
00:20:35.400and they usually use natural gas to heat their home and truckers use diesel and farmers use diesel
00:20:41.880and natural gas and propane to both heat their barns and to dry their grain. So, if you increase
00:20:48.440the cost of that element of those fuels you increase the cost of everything because people
00:20:53.480can't opt out right and so this is why this is such a brutal punishment for people and what
00:20:59.560really gets me going corey is that the parliamentary budget officer themselves an independent government
00:21:05.960watchdog keeps an eye on the budget says this hurts low-income people like single mothers
00:21:12.760and fixed income folks the worst. It hurts them the most. Because for folks who don't remember
00:21:20.120what it's like to live paycheck to paycheck, that literally means your paycheck's out there paying
00:21:26.120for stuff. Everything. Rent, your car payment, groceries, whatever. You increase the cost of one
00:21:33.320of those essentials and you're cutting into their food budget. You're making them have to find a
00:21:38.600a cheaper place to live. Good luck. So that's why it's hurting those folks the most, even with the
00:21:44.320rebates factored in. And this is where I can't understand why the feds aren't listening.
00:21:49.240Well, and part of it too, and you sort of touched a bit on that is the indirect costs. I mean,
00:21:53.560we see it at the pump, we see it on our heating bill, but also the delivery of a lot of products
00:21:58.220and services to us. So retail brick and mortar places, they're all paying that as well. And of
00:22:04.060course they have to incorporate that into the prices of the goods and services they provide.
00:22:07.760So you still end up paying it down the road for the other consumers of it in the business world.
00:22:14.620100%. And so just imagine you are, you know, a store, you're a big store. You have to keep it
00:22:20.860cool in the summer and heated in the winter. Most companies would use natural gas to do that.
00:22:26.920Boom, there's a carbon tax. All those trucks that deliver all the stuff that we eat and use that
00:22:32.340are backing into their loading base, those are running on diesel. Those get a carbon tax. And a
00:22:38.700lot of folks forget too, that most of our locomotives in Canada run on diesel. It's around
00:22:44.540$2,400 extra per fill up of one of those diesel locomotives in the carbon tax alone. That's just
00:22:52.720the carbon tax. For a big rig truck, like if you've got, you know, a Peterbilt and you got a
00:22:57.300couple of those diesel cylinders, that's around $160 extra just in the first carbon tax on diesel.
00:23:04.800So that one's going to triple in the next seven years, plus the second carbon tax is going to
00:23:10.780add more pain. And so this is where we're, every time a politician opens their mouths about
00:23:15.680affordability, you should really question them and ask them how seriously they're taking
00:23:20.900affordability when they're making everything more expensive through the carbon taxes.
00:23:24.940So something Dave mentioned before, and then what you and your organization just put out in a
00:23:30.300release though, is this, this carbon tax isn't being applied equally across the country. It
00:23:35.500appears that we've got a special province that unsurprisingly, to be honest, is getting a break
00:23:41.760on it. Guess which one? It's, it's the province of Quebec. I know your viewers are shocked. I can
00:23:48.060tell at the Western standard. So what's interesting here, Corey, is that this is now getting
00:23:53.780really highlighted because up until July 1st, Atlantic Canada had a cap and trade deal.
00:24:01.800So they were paying a much lower carbon tax. I think it was around 2 cents per liter of gasoline
00:24:07.860where the rest of us are paying 14 cents. Why is that? Well, they have a more energy intensive
00:24:14.080economy for heating, blah, blah, blah. Whatever reason they had, they had a cap and trade deal
00:24:19.840so that they had a slower roll into the mandatory minimum federal carbon tax.