NDP Carbon Tax will hurt Canadian Families
The leaves are changing colour, Canadians are bracing for the cold months, but unfortunately – if the NDP has its way – the colder months will also bring higher home heating bills, higher prices for groceries, and higher gasoline prices.
The facts are clear: Not only did the 2011 NDP Platform specifically state the NDP would “put a price on carbon” (pg. 12), but their costing document also showed plans to generate $21.5 billion in government revenue through this scheme over the course of four years (NDP costing tables, pg. 4). Without this revenue, their fiscal plan would have fallen apart. Just like Stéphane Dion’s failed Green Shift, the Mulcair plan proposes raising billions of dollars in new revenue for the government to be put towards new government spending.
Respected economist, Jack Mintz, calculated that the carbon tax would raise gas prices by as much as 10 cents a litre (Financialpost.com, April 29, 2011). By raising the cost of producing and transporting food, a carbon tax will also increase grocery prices. And by increasing the cost of generating electricity – including from natural gas, oil, wood and coal – an NDP carbon tax would make it more expensive for Canadians to heat and power their homes.
It would be more expensive for businesses to create and protect jobs – especially for small- and medium-sized businesses. Farmers would face increased costs of operating their equipment and the manufacturing industry would face added variable costs, making it more likely for them to take their businesses across the border.
When it comes to schemes to raise taxes, it’s apparent the NDP can’t seem to help themselves. The Broadbent Institute, a socialist think-tank headed by NDP insider Ed Broadbent and closely aligned with Thomas Mulcair’s NDP, just released a report outlining an economic plan for Canada – demanding more and higher taxes on Canadians, including a carbon tax.
The report states “a carbon tax and higher taxes on natural resources … need to be considered as a means of financing and promoting the transition to a socially and environmentally sustainable society.”
Further, the report exposes the NDP’s high-tax agenda and their fundamental socialist belief that Canadians should be forced to send more and more of their hard-earned money to big government schemes and bureaucracies: “tax cuts have squeezed the services we already have, and made it difficult to talk about expanding the social programs … taxes are the hinge that links citizens to one another.”
Little wonder the NDP have opposed our Conservative government’s tax cuts since 2006 – like lowering the GST from 7% to 5% and creating the Tax-Free Savings Account – and are against leaving more money in the pockets of Canadian families, where it belongs.
They can call it whatever they want, but the NDP plan to make carbon a commodity will raise prices on consumer costs for Canadians. It is a tax because it will raise costs.
But what can we really expect from Mr. Mulcair when one of his first acts in his short time as the head of the NDP has been to alienate Western Canada and play games with national unity by proclaiming that Canada is suffering from the “Dutch disease”?
Rest assured, our Conservative government will continue to oppose the NDPs plans to raise taxes.
