Dear Editor:
I listen carefully each day to the spin by the Liberal federal government on the carbon tax including rebranding efforts to change it to a carbon rebate. It reminds me of an old analogy: “you can’t put lipstick on a pig…”
One of my favorites is “people will be so upset if a government cancels the rebate checks received each quarter. Most people get more back than what they pay.”
Lets think about that …
When farmers pay up to over $100,000 per year in carbon tax to dry grain or heat barns they do not get that back in rebate. Truckers who move the products – not only farm products but every single item they move, which is most everything – pay a carbon levy on fuel.
From the start of farming or manufacturing to sale, each step along the way is going to lose; this extra tax costs more. Each business along the way passes the costs on to guess who – all of us.
It does not take a rocket scientist to see that everything costs more. And yes, building materials for homes is in this too … So this not about people getting a bit back on home heating and fuel at the pumps – and smile and be happy about it.
Let’s get real: it defies all logic that the government is taxing and giving you back more than they took.
Thank goodness people are seeing this. It just baffles me each day that the Liberal government tries to sell that it’s a rebate, free and clear, to Canadians. It would be more palatable to say we are charging you a penalty tax for driving so you will stop driving your cars; and turn the heat off to your homes in winter to tackle climate change. It can’t and doesn’t work that way.
And by the way, Pierre Trudeau tried punishing people for driving cars in the 1970s with a fuel price jump, when it went from gallons to litres. It didn’t work then and it wont work now.
Doak McCraney,
Guelph