While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government gets set to force a federal carbon tax on all of Canada\u2019s provinces and territories, taxpayers across the country deserve to know what happened in the country’s carbon-tax test case, British Columbia.<\/p>\n
The Trojan horse of the carbon tax was wheeled into the B.C. public square in 2008 with the government’s promise that it would somehow cost average people nothing and would be \u201crevenue neutral.\u201d But, that turned out to be a cautionary tale for the ages.<\/p>\n
For years, the carbon-tax cheerleaders continued to laud the fee that\u2019s been tacked on to carbon-emitting goods and services, urging the rest of the country to follow suit. It was touted as a magical formula that would somehow protect the environment and lower taxes all at once. Visions of hydrogen-powered buses and solar cars danced in the heads of the green bean counters. \u201cRevenue neutral\u201d they all sang.<\/p>\n
The reality of government, however, is always duller and grift-ier than that. The current B.C. government has dropped the term \u201crevenue neutral\u201d altogether and now calls the carbon tax a \u201ctool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before the charade was abandoned entirely, this is what \u201crevenue neutral\u201d meant for the B.C. carbon tax: In 2016\u201317 the provincial government raked in $1.2 billion in the carbon tax from taxpayers. The amount is listed on page 68 in the budget document as a frame entitled: \u201cRevenue Neutral Carbon Tax Plan.\u201d Then, the government scraped together 17 sundry tax credits and stuffed them into the carbon-tax frame, making the tax sum balance out to zero. Abracadabra: “revenue neutral.” That\u2019s all it meant.<\/p>\n
It was a crass puppet show. Every provincial and federal budget includes tax credits for things like home renovations, children\u2019s fitness programs, film incentives, and business training tax credits. In B.C., however, there is an uncommon carbon tax taken from people, so these very common credits were just repackaged to make the tax appear neutral on paper. As a senior B.C. government official admitted during last year\u2019s budget lockup, \u201cthis was always just an accounting exercise.\u201d<\/p>\n
The carbon tax is not an accounting exercise for B.C. families. It\u2019s an expensive reality for any Canadian subjected to it.<\/p>\n
Under the federal formula at $35 per tonne, the carbon tax costs a lot of money at the gas station, approximately 8.55 cents per litre of gasoline with the GST tacked onto it, and 10.06 cents per litre for diesel with the GST. To fill up an average Toyota Camry with a 70-litre fuel tank costs $6 in carbon tax. A Dodge Ram pick-up truck costs more than $10 in carbon tax and a Ford Super Duty Diesel costs more than $17 per fill up. For tractor-trailer trucks, it costs $45 in carbon taxes to fill up just one of those cylinder tanks with diesel. Canadians bought more than 40 billion litres of gasoline and more than 16 billion litres of diesel fuel in 2016. Multiply that volume by the carbon tax per litre and the government haul is crystal clear.<\/p>\n