Brian Crossman. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
Remember when we were kids? “April Fool’s” day was the best. We’d all try to prank our “unsuspecting” (Yeah right…) friends, family and teachers with silly jokes, some pretty believable and clever, but most so obvious they weren’t fooling anybody. In any event, it was still a bunch of good semi-clean fun. (Ice cream pail with water on a partially opened door was a classic) And of course, the rule was it was all over by noon, and regular life followed.
Fast forward to modern times, April first means something totally different today. Now, thanks to our Liberal government and their supporters we get to increase our penance for “so-called” pollution every April first.
The question I keep hearing from all my friends and colleagues is, “Why do we need a carbon tax?” Well, fret not, let’s dissect this, and try having a little fun at the same time. God only knows this topic needs a little humour.
What is taxed exactly?
The answer is simple. Pretty much everything. The fuel you burn in your car, to heat your home, run your lawnmower all the fun toys. Also, the fuel used to transport all the food you eat, the furniture you sit on, the electronics you enjoy and the piece of Lego your kid left out and you stepped on. (@#$%##@??!!!) Man, those hurt. But yeah, you paid some carbon tax on that too. That plane trip you plan to take once this COVI thing is over? Yeah, that too. The natural gas we use to heat our homes and create electricity in many power generating stations. I’ll give credit where credit is due; the Liberal government figured out a way to tax us on everything. Socialists’ fantasy.
Who pays?
Well, the short answer is, we all do. I know, I know, ya’ll have heard on the radio, TV, the internet and the constant stream of expletives coming from everyone you meet (I’m in the expletive group). Every time you purchase ANYTHING it will cost more based on this tax. You pay, I pay, every single business pays. Your kids pay when they buy candy, pop or a Hot Wheels car (or more Lego). And before any of you carbon tax supporters go off on your “well, we all get rebates from this,” just shut your cake-holes for a minute. As I noted earlier, the cost of everything goes up. EVERYTHING. The math doesn’t jive. You pay a ton, and get a tiny bit back? Come on people, we are all smarter than that.
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Just ask Jason LeBlanc, and Estevan farmer how much it costs now to dry some grain and fuel the equipment. I called and asked him, and he said a farmer has ZERO way to know the final costs as pricing on parts, fuel, fertilizer and every other thing they NEED. Jason did tell me to check out Peter Clack (@PeterDClack on Twitter) for some common sense takes on CO2 and its place in our world. I suggest you do the same if you haven’t already.
How does it work?
It is the opinion of the current government that the more fuel costs, the less we will use, and “Viola!” the climate change will end. Maybe. Until the next crisis shows up. And you know it will. The other guarantee they like to make is, by using less fossil fuels, we will switch to renewables. Now I don’t disagree with that. We do need to work toward that. But the idea of a nearly “instant transition” is laughable. We need many more years of R & D to envision, develop, test and implement the future. Oh yeah, that takes CAPITAL. (See what I did there?) we have a built-in resource sector that we can profit from and build the future. So I hope you enjoy spending your rebate money on those luxury items like food, and heat. Shelter and clothes are pretty nice, too. All of which will cost you more than your rebate money.
Why are we paying?
As I noted earlier, this tax is supposed to “push” us all toward renewable energy. Electric cars for example. Great idea. Battery tech is improving every year. But we need to improve the grid to charge them, and honestly we need to go to nuclear energy, to facilitate this. Where there is little or no hydro and geothermal this is especially true. Solar and wind are not baseload power. Even though we can burn coal and natural gas cleaner than ever (carbon capture anyone?) the green crowd and the current federal government aren’t on board. Not sure why. If they can prove to me that all this “carbon tax” is going to fund the wonderful new technology, I may just sit down and listen. However, the Liberal Government still can’t/won’t account for the $600 billion spent at the beginning of the pandemic. I guess that I’m just getting a bit jaded about how our tax money isn’t being accounted for. (This goes for all levels and stripes of government.)
And now the punch line
The salt in the proverbial wound is the fact that the federal government have deemed themselves worthy of a raise on April first. Just on principal alone it should be cancelled. The dollar amount isn’t going to change the budget issues we already have, we are so far in debt it’s barely noticeable. It’s still a pretty big slap in the face considering what Canadians have been through the past two plus years. If we in the oilfield service sector ran our businesses like this, Ritchie Brothers would have auctioned it all off years ago. If this carbon tax continues it may just come to that anyway.
On March 23, Environment Minister Stephen Guilbeault said that “8/10 families will get back more than they paid” (in carbon tax).
Ironically, the very next day the Parliamentary Budget Officer said, “most households in provinces under the backstop will see a net loss resulting from federal carbon pricing.” I don’t know Mr. Guilbeault, but he is either severely-math challenged, or irony-impaired. Yup, April Fools on us.
Miss those old school pranks when we were young? Yeah, Me too.
Brian Crossman is a partner at Independent Well Servicing in Estevan Saskatchewan. He is looking for volunteers to assist his in toilet-papering the Prime-Ministers official country home on April first. You know, the one we taxpayers spent 11.7 million dollars on the renovations? Yeah April Fools…
Editor’s note: If you’ve just finished your year-end and figured out how much your business paid in carbon tax, please drop me a line at brian.zinchuk@pipelineonline.ca. I would like to do several stories on this. When it was first introduced, one dirt-moving company figured their carbon tax bill for the year was around $90,000. It turns out you can’t buy an electric D8 dozer.
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- 0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office0055 Smart Power Be Smart with your Power office
- 0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly0051 JML Hiring Pumpjack assembly
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- 0022 Grimes winter hiring
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- 0018 IWS Hiring Royal Summer
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- 0002 gilliss casing services0002 gilliss casing services
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