108
Almost half of Canadians living paycheque to paycheque as Tory support grows: poll
(www.winnipegfreepress.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
108 points (94.3% liked)
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I do need to point out that the carbon tax is a bad example here, because the tax is rebated directly back to individual Canadians. So even if companies are folding the tax into their prices, we're not paying for it. They're effectively raising the price, then paying us the difference.
Of course, companies that can find ways to reduce their carbon footprint can simply avoid paying the tax altogether, allowing them to obtain more profit at the same price point. This incentivises climate friendly behaviour.
It's not a perfect solution, but within the neo-liberal paradigm that we're currently stuck in its at least making a difference, and a lot of climate experts agree that carbon taxes are an effective strategy (they shouldn't be the only strategy, but that's a separate discussion).
Point is, companies raising prices in line with carbon taxes isn't hurting your wallet, because you're getting that money right back. The designers of the policy already knew that would happen and factored it in.
In all fairness, I'm getting nowhere near the amount back on rebates that prices have increased for me. One check doesn't even cover 1 month of utility increases let alone the several months that go by in between. And there's grocery, clothing and fuel costs on top of that.
The price jump has nothing to do with the carbon tax. The carbon tax is $0.14 per litre, so it's only about 10% of the price of gas. That means it can only be blamed for 10% of the price-jump at an absolute upper limit, and that's only if your diet consists of chugging gasoline (hey, I don't judge).
If prices were only up 10% since last year I'd be goddamned ecstatic.
It's not. It's supply-chains, shockwaves from covid-shutdowns, pandemic-spending, a massive war in Asia between the world's biggest gas and grain providers, and anti-globalist on-shoring driving up prices. The last one of those isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it has a cost just like carbon pricing has a cost.
Okay yes, at the pumps it may be, but what I'm saying is: Company 1 increases their prices 10% to offset the CT costs. Company 2 takes that 10% cost increase + their 10% increase and raises their pricing. Company 3 has an increase from Company 2 + 10% increase of their own and raises their prices accordingly.
Every level raises the prices that much more and in the end the consumers get stuck with all of that. So we're paying the carbon tax for each company down the supply chain.
That would only make sense if 100% of company 1's costs were gasoline. Also, the carbon tax has been going up every year since it first appeared in 2019. The price spike started last year. And the same price spikes are happening in every country, and most countries don't have carbon taxes.