The Trudeau government is celebrating a big carbon tax rebate, but it s actually costing Canadian families a lot more than they are getting back. And it s not just rebates, it s a second carbon tax coming in 2030 that could be even worse.
00:00:00.000Kind of what first caught my eye this week, though, you've always got lots to cover, lots to say.
00:00:03.800Unfortunately, in some ways, you know, you're like a firefighter.
00:00:07.060You kind of wish you didn't have to do your job, but it needs to be done there.
00:00:11.200And the government makes sure that you've got employment security because they're always wasting our tax dollars.
00:00:15.820But the big carbon tax rebate, you know, they almost made it celebratory.
00:00:19.360Look, everybody happy. Look at all the money coming back to you.
00:00:23.360Not quite the windfall for people in reality that they like to make it out to be.
00:00:27.880Yeah, that's right. I mean, it turns out that the Trudeau government isn't exactly being honest with Canadians.
00:00:34.900Corey, I know you're shocked, but the Trudeau government is claiming that families are going to be made better off with its carbon tax and rebate scheme.
00:00:43.580But hold on a second, because the government's own independent watchdog, the parliamentary budget officer, is showing that the federal government is using magic math.
00:00:51.900So the carbon tax this year will cost the average household anywhere from about three hundred dollars all the way to six hundred and seventy dollars, even after accounting for the rebates.
00:01:03.280Again, that's according to the parliamentary budget officer.
00:01:05.740So the Trudeau government is telling us one thing and the government's own independent watchdog is saying, no, no, no, that's not true.
00:01:11.640The carbon tax will cost the average family hundreds of dollars, even with the rebate.
00:01:18.000And best of all, of course, that we always talk about, how well has it worked on reducing emissions so far?
00:01:24.380Yeah, not well at all. Not well at all.
00:01:26.600The carbon tax is not this low cost environmental plan.
00:01:31.180The carbon tax is a high cost tax tax plan.
00:01:35.180I mean, the Western standard, let's talk about the most Western province in Canada, British Columbia.
00:01:40.960It has had the highest carbon tax in the nation for years and emissions continue to go up.
00:01:47.580Data on Trudeau's first year of the national carbon tax shows that emissions went up there.
00:01:54.520OK, so there's two claims that the federal government is really misleading Canadians on.
00:01:59.460Number one is they're trying to sell Canadians that this is an environmental plan.
00:02:03.340Well, if you look at the data, it's pretty clear that it's not an environmental plan.
00:02:08.280The second misleading claim is that they're trying to make Canadians think that you're going to be better off with these rebates than you are paying the carbon tax.
00:02:41.320The carbon tax is only going to get worse and worse because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he'll keep cranking up his carbon tax to nearly 40 cents per litre by 2030.
00:02:53.760It means that from now through 2030, the carbon tax and rebate will still cost an average household anywhere between $6,400 if you're living in Manitoba, all the way up to $13,000 if you're living in Alberta.
00:03:09.500And again, that's after accounting for the rebate.
00:03:11.780And that's the government's own independent watchdog's numbers.
00:03:14.480But, Corey, you know what else this isn't considering?
00:03:20.520We just saw the regulations that the federal government released of its second carbon tax through fuel regulations that will be coming into effect next year.
00:03:30.440Now, here's what happens with the second carbon tax.
00:03:33.420If companies can't reduce the carbon content of their fuel, if they can't meet Trudeau's requirements, they have to pay a second carbon tax.
00:03:42.520But the government's own research shows that it's going to be consumers who get hammered from the second carbon tax.
00:03:50.240It could add up to 13 cents per litre extra by 2030.
00:03:54.720There's no rebates with the second carbon tax.
00:03:57.360And, Corey, I know I'm going on, but one more point.
00:03:59.720The government knows exactly who the second carbon tax is really going to impact.
00:04:04.960If you read their own impact analysis, it shows that it's lower- and middle-income Canadians who are going to get the brunt of this.
00:05:07.220Every time the Trudeau liberals are passing by a gas station, they must be patting themselves on the back because these high gas prices are exactly what the Trudeau government has been pushing for with its carbon tax hikes, with its second carbon tax hikes, with its attacks on the energy industry that reduces supply.
00:05:24.560No more pipelines law, discriminatory tanker ban.
00:05:26.900Corey, you know I can go on and on and on.
00:05:30.040But one thing we have to talk about here is what you just said.
00:05:33.280It's the people who are inflicting this pain that seem to be shielded from the pain.
00:05:38.360And Corey, here's the perfect example.
00:05:46.480We just found out that the Bank of Canada has been busy handing out $45 million in bonuses and pay raises during the pandemic when it obviously failed to keep inflation low.
00:05:59.180Yeah, and I mean, you know, it's been said by a lot.
00:06:04.980I mean, if the Bank of Canada was going to be responsible, they should have been starting to creep up then the prime interest rate six, eight months ago, rather than suddenly coming in with a hammer at this point.
00:06:16.220And as you said, they're kind of patting themselves on the back now with bonuses for having dropped the ball.
00:06:20.380Well, look, at best, at best, the Bank of Canada failed to keep a lid on these rising prices.
00:06:28.280But at worst, it is actually driving the inflation by printing hundreds of billions of dollars out of thin air.
00:06:34.320I mean, the Bank of Canada had its money printer on overdrive during the pandemic.
00:06:39.860It's printed $300 billion out of thin air.
00:06:53.880So, come on, like, the Bank of Canada needs to do a better job.
00:06:57.720In fact, the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada admitted that they failed to hit their inflation target.
00:07:03.800So, if you have one of the leaders in the Bank of Canada who's admitting that they failed to hit their inflation target, well, then why are they handing out pay raises and bonuses?
00:07:13.060I mean, it really doesn't make sense from the perspective of the Canadians whose money relies on the central bank to actually do their job right.
00:07:21.460Yeah, but that goes to show kind of government versus private sector, right?
00:07:25.920Like, if I underperformed and I was sourcing columns that were poorly read and my show ratings were crap and our advertisers are fleeing, I know that Derek, if he doesn't fire me, he's at least, he's not going to give me any raises or bonuses.
00:07:40.480I mean, it just doesn't work that way.
00:07:43.020But in government, I also, we have the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, the ones who want to come after our home equity, they all got bonuses.
00:07:50.100And CBC executives who came begging for a bailout during the pandemic, they're all getting bonuses.
00:07:56.440So, I mean, there's definitely two classes in this country and it's between the private and public sectors.
00:08:13.580I mean, I was in Calgary, you're in Calgary.
00:08:16.800How many friends and family members and neighbors do we have who took a pay cut, who may have lost their job, who may have lost their small business and the life savings with it?
00:08:25.540But then in government, there were no pay cuts.
00:08:28.060Where were the pay cuts in government?
00:09:03.140They handed out, what, $171 million in bonuses during the pandemic?
00:09:09.300But the departments failed to meet half of their own performance objectives.
00:09:13.400Corey, on top of that, the Fed's also handed out $1.6 billion in overtime pay since 2019.
00:09:21.800So we're spending buckets of cash hiring new bureaucrats, buckets of cash paying for overtime bonuses, pay raises, and we can't even get the government to meet its own performance objectives.
00:09:31.480Well, yeah, I mean, some of those material things we can see with government services, we're hearing about all the crisis that's going on.
00:09:38.180People can't get their passports renewed.
00:09:39.880As simple as renewing a government document that they've been doing since Confederation, we've had passports.
00:09:45.860And they still apparently can't figure out how to renew them.
00:09:48.480And we've got millions of people in immigration now on a backlog.
00:09:52.660Like, the government's spending more and more, and we're getting less and less.
00:09:56.500Yeah, you know, I can't believe we have to say this, Corey, but bonuses and pay raises are for when you do a good job.
00:10:02.520But, like, these departments, the Bank of Canada, the CMHC, they're not doing a good job.
00:10:08.280Why are they getting pay raises and bonuses?
00:10:10.320And if you just give bonuses away like you're giving away participation ribbons, is it really a bonus or is it just a slush fund, right?
00:10:19.680I mean, in the private sector, if you were to fumble the ball like the government is in many of these departments and crown corporations, you'd probably get shown the door, to your point, not be showing a huge bonus check.
00:10:33.080So, I mean, it's so frustrating from taxpayers' perspective.
00:10:36.900But, Corey, you know who we should really be looking at here is our politicians in Ottawa.
00:11:28.220Other countries are going to see massive inflation when other countries do crazy things like run unbelievable amount of deficits or have their money printing on overdrive as well.
00:11:37.740When other countries do that, surprise, surprise, they're going to get the same bad results.
00:11:42.800And look, yes, global prices or prices are going up around the globe, but Canada isn't exactly doing well.
00:11:51.620Okay, if you look at the International Monetary Fund, they track consumer price increases around the world.
00:11:57.160In 2021, only three of 35 industrialized countries had higher inflation than Canada.
00:12:05.940So, Canada had, what, higher inflation than 31 other industrialized countries, according to data from the International Monetary Fund.
00:12:14.360So, it's not like the Bank of Canada Governor, Tiff Macklem, can just shrug off this inflation and say, oh, it's just a global phenomenon, because clearly Canada is not doing good.
00:12:23.180It's not like we're Hong Kong, which is 1.8% inflation.
00:12:27.420It's not like we're Japan, which is close to about 2.5% inflation.
00:12:31.700It's not even like we're Switzerland, which is close to, what, 3.4% inflation.
00:12:35.900Canada just announced 8.1% inflation, which is the highest annual increase since 1983, Corey.
00:12:46.300Yeah, I mean, if our currency starts losing value, and that's the reality of what inflation is, that's completely within the control of the government.
00:12:53.240I mean, if there's a loss of purchasing power because of internationally traded commodities like oil and gas, then, yeah, there's only limited things they can do.
00:13:00.680But there are things within their control, and as you said, when you can point out exceptions with other countries that aren't suffering by this, their excuse starts to fall pretty hollow.
00:13:08.260I mean, just because 100 countries are doing a stupid thing doesn't mean it's not still a stupid thing.
00:13:15.260What do you think happens when you print up $300 billion out of thin air, right?
00:13:19.820That's the problem, is that you have the government that can print $300 billion out of thin air, but you can't just go around printing new farmland or printing new homes out of thin air.
00:13:29.380So you end up with the perfect storm for inflation, which is too many dollars chasing too few goods, right?
00:13:36.000We know that that's what happens when you print up a whole bunch of money and you just throw it into the economy.
00:13:42.260Now, that's exacerbated by the fact that we just went through two years of revolving government lockdowns, which mean that we just can't continue to create as many goods that money could buy during that time, right?
00:13:55.820So the perfect storm for inflation was created by Canadian governments.
00:14:00.320Are there many other factors that influence prices?
00:14:04.140But we can't let our government off the hook for this mess that they have, at least in part, created.
00:14:11.100Well, I know you guys won't let them off the hook.
00:14:13.780And of course, I love hanging them on the hook whenever possible.
00:14:17.400But all the same, let's hope we see some positive change.
00:14:20.380I guess the starts to at least just keep pointing it out and driving it home to people that they got to tell their elected members to change their bloody behavior.
00:14:27.740So where can people find more information on what you guys are up to and what you're doing, Franco?
00:14:33.360I would recommend that all your listeners pick up the phone or send an email to your member of parliament and ask them what they've done during COVID-19 with their pay raises.
00:14:41.120Because all members of parliament have been busy giving themselves three pay raises during the pandemic.
00:14:46.180So I would love to encourage your audience maybe to give them an earful.
00:14:49.820But please, please, please, please check us out at taxpayer.com.
00:14:52.840We've got petitions you can sign and you can follow all of our work in the newsroom tab.