The current Liberal proposal of carbon taxation is laughable in my opinion, a mere token gesture to appeal to the guilt of Canadians.
Face it people: we are animals and by definition, animals pollute, because they exhale CO2. We, the tool making, tool using humans, have figured out other ways to leverage our efforts, but the net cost is still production of CO2.
Only the extremely naïve among us would think that “the big bad polluters need to be punished”. Those big bad polluters are doing so on your behalf, and if you think that we “the government” can impose a carbon tax on “them”, without “them” turning around and handing us the bill, then you really do not know how economics works in real life.
Take note that the way government ‘softens us up’, is to begin a new program with refunds and tax credits to the individual. During the time lag between you paying the extra carbon tax, and receiving your refund, you have a real out of pocket cost. After a few years of this, the government knows that you have learned to make do for a full year, bearing the cost of the tax yourself. So then, they cut off the refund/tax credit. There, you are now thoroughly weaned and paying the full brunt of taxes yourself. Pretty sneaky, not?
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