GUNTER: Quebec gets deal on carbon tax while rest of Canada pays

Next year, Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax will rise to 14¢ per litre of gasoline, despite the hardship caused to Canadian families by the rising cost of gasoline and the runaway inflation that is itself the direct result of the Trudeau government’s orgy of spending and borrowing.

By 2030, the carbon tax will be 37¢ per litre right across the country.

Except in Quebec.

Huh!?

That’s right. The federal government has cut the prime minister’s home province a special deal.

In Quebec, the carbon tax only has to be 9¢ a litre in 2023 and just 23¢ in 2030.

The official excuse is that Quebec has a cap-and-trade emissions-reduction plan that operates differently from the federal carbon tax that applies in four provinces (Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta) and the carbon-pricing schemes in the five provinces that have their own carbon taxes.

“Trudeau is giving Quebec a special deal on carbon taxes and giving other Canadians higher gas prices and heating bills,” explains Franco Terrazzano, Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), the organization that discovered the discrepancy while examining federal documents.

No explanation is offered by Ottawa of how or why Quebec’s cap-and-trade scheme is so special.

Is it better at reducing emissions at a lower cost to consumers than the feds’ own carbon tax which is applied directly at the pump?

If so, how come the Liberal government isn’t reorganizing the federal scheme to match the Quebec one and let us all in on the better deal? If Quebec gets the same enviro-saving bang for fewer taxpayer bucks, perhaps they could share their wisdom with the rest of us.

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Frankly, if Quebec’s method is superior, it makes absolutely no sense that Ottawa would continue to squeeze more money than is needed from the rest of us. Indeed, it would be an outrage if a cheaper way to achieve the same goal existed and the Liberals continued to drain the rest of us dry anyway.

Of course, the Quebec method isn’t superior, or at least the federal government doesn’t truly believe it is. Nova Scotia has a very similar cap-and-trade program, and the feds nonetheless expect Nova Scotia to raise its tax to the equivalent of 37¢ a litre by 2030, just like the rest of the country.

According to the CTF’s Terrazzano, “Trudeau’s special deal for Quebec shows the carbon tax was always about politics, not the environment.”

There are other reasons the federal carbon tax is a scam.

It’s hardly “revenue neutral,” as the Liberals have claimed since they began imposing it nearly four years ago.

The Trudeau government has insisted the tax is a “net benefit for families.” Sure, you pay a little extra when you buy gas for your vehicle, their talking points admit, but you get big rebates from the federal treasury that more than make up for your taxes at the pump.

Except the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) calculates the treasury will come ahead nearly $6 billion next year from the carbon tax and as much as $18 billion by 2030.

That doesn’t sound very revenue neutral to me.

Then there’s the little matter of provincial discrimination. Despite claiming that it is “committed to ensuring carbon pricing is in place across Canada at a similar level,” the PBO estimates the federal carbon tax will cost the average Alberta family about $2,300 a year by 2030 ($5,500 at the pump and on home heating, less $2,200 in rebates), while it will cost the average Ontario family about $1,500.

In case you want a reason why Alberta Premier Danielle Smith thinks her province needs a sovereignty act to protect it from being Ottawa’s scapegoat, here’s one (among many).

Just end the carbon tax.