Business
Canadian Taxpayer Federation calls on Ottawa to rescind recent Carbon Tax hike
From the Canadian Taxpayer Federation
Ottawa’s carbon tax hike out of step with global reality
by Aaron Wudrick, Federal Director and Franco Terrazzano, Alberta Director
(This column originally appeared in the Financial Post)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has chosen to make life more expensive by increasing the federal carbon tax by 50 per cent amidst the COVID-19 economic and health crisis. Meanwhile, governments around the world are moving in the opposite direction because hiking taxes during a global pandemic is a bad idea.
Provinces have already tapped the breaks on their own carbon tax hikes. British Columbia Premier John Horgan announced that he would not be going forward with his planned April 1 carbon tax hike. Instead of mirroring the federal carbon tax hike, Newfoundland and Labrador is maintaining its tax at $20 per tonne. The price of carbon allowances in the Quebec-California cap and trade system have also fallen due to COVID-19 and the current macroeconomic realities.
The European Union’s cap and trade scheme, which applies to 30 countries, has also seen its carbon tax rate drop significantly. For most of 2019 and early 2020, EU carbon prices traded around €25 per tonne before nosediving to around €15 per tonne in March. The EU’s cap and trade carbon tax rate has fallen 32 per cent below its 2020 peak, according to the most recent data available on the ICAP Allowance Price Explorer. While the tax rate has increased since bottoming out, S&P Global Platts Analytics forecasts the COVID-19 shock keeping downward pressure on the cap and trade market.
Other counties are providing further carbon tax relief. The Norwegian government reduced its carbon tax rate on natural gas and liquified petroleum gas to zeroand will keep the rates below the pre-coronavirus level until 2024. Norway also deferred payments on various fuel taxes until June 18.
Estonia Finance Minister Martin Helme formally called for his country to consider leaving the EU’s cap and trade carbon tax system to provide relief. The prime minister later announced that Estonia would not seek to leave the EU’s carbon tax system, but the Estonian government lowered the excise tax on electricity to the minimum allowed by the EU and lowered its excise tax on diesel, light and heavy fuel oil, shale oil and natural gas.
“Due to the economic downturn, both people’s incomes and the revenue of companies are declining, but daily household expenses such as electricity or gas bills still need to be paid. To better cope with them, we are reducing excise duty rates on gas and electricity for two years,” Helme explained.
Outside of the EU, the United Kingdom is saving its taxpayers between £15 and £20 million per year by walking back its plan to increase its carbon tax top-up, New Zealand’s cap and trade tax rate has fallen by more than 20 per cent this year and South Africa pushed back carbon tax payments by three months.
It’s worth noting that it’s unlikely Canada’s carbon tax will have any meaningful impact on global emissions. Only 45 countries (out of 195 countries worldwide) are covered by a carbon tax, and only 15.6 per cent of total emissions are covered by these carbon taxes, according to the World Bank. Furthermore, about half of the emissions covered by carbon taxes are priced below US$10/tCO2e – significantly lower than Canada’s federal rate and too low to make a difference.
With Canada only accounting for 1.5 per cent of global emissions, it’s easy to understand Trudeau’s acknowledgement that, “even if Canada stopped everything tomorrow, and the other countries didn’t have any solutions, it wouldn’t make a big difference.”
Now more than ever, Canadian taxpayers need relief. With carbon tax burdens declining around the globe during the COVID-19 crisis, walking back the recent carbon tax hike should be a no-brainer for our federal government.
Province of Alberta replies to Joe Biden’s promise to cancel Keystone XL
Business
WEF panelist suggests COVID response accustomed people to the idea of CBDCs
Central Bank of Bahrain governor Khalid Humaidan
From LifeSiteNews
When asked how he would convince people that CBDCs would be a trusted medium of exchange, Bahrain’s central bank governor said that COVID made the digital transformation ‘something of a requirement’ that had ‘very little resistance.’
Central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) will hopefully replace physical cash and become fully digital, a central banker tells the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Speaking at the WEF Special Meeting on Global Collaboration, Growth and Energy Development on Sunday, Central Bank of Bahrain governor Khalid Humaidan told the panel “Open Forum: The Digital Currencies’ Opportunity in the Middle East” that one of the goals of CBDC was to replace cash, at least in Bahrain, and to go “one hundred percent digital.”
Humaidan likened physical cash to being an antiquated “analogue” technology and that CBDC was the digital solution that would hopefully replace cash:
"We're probably going to stop calling it central bank digital currency [CBDC]. It's going to be a digital form of cash, and at some point in time hopefully we will be able to be 100% digital": Central Bank of Bahrain Governor Khalid Humaidan to the WEF https://t.co/Pspr0M1Uuq pic.twitter.com/N5aOkCpzh1
— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) April 29, 2024
“I thank this panel and this opportunity. It forced me to refine my thoughts and opinions where I’m at a place comfortably now that I’m ready to verbalize what I think about CBDC,” said Humaidan.
If we think cash is the analogue and digital currency is the form of digital – CBDC is the digital form of cash – today, clearly we’re in a hybrid situation; we’re using both.
We know in the past when it comes to cash, central bankers were very much in control with all aspects of cash, and now we’re comfortable to the point where the private sector plays a big role in the printing of the cash, in the distribution of the cash, and with the private sector we use interest rates to manage the supply of cash.
The same thing is likely to happen with CBDC. Yes, the central bank will have a role, but at some point in time – the same way we don’t call it ‘central bank cash’ – we’re probably going to stop calling it central bank digital currency.
“It’s going to be a digital form of the cash, and at some point in time hopefully we will be able to be one hundred percent digital,” he added.
When asked how he would convince people that CBDC would be a trusted medium of exchange, Bahrain’s central bank governor said that people were already used to it and that COVID made the digital transformation “necessary” and “something of a requirement” that had “very little resistance.”
"There's less use of cash […] The transition to fully digital is not going to be a stretch […] People are used to it […] Its adoption rates increased because of COVID […] There is very little resistance": Central Bank of Bahrain Governor Khalid Humaidan to the WEF on CBDC pic.twitter.com/zB7nJAi48G
— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) April 29, 2024
“Right now, many of our payments are digital. The truth is, I said that we’re in a hybrid model; there’s less and less use of cash,” said Humaidan.
I think from predominantly digital with a little physical, I think the transition to fully digital is not going to be a stretch.
People are used to it, people have engaged in it and certain circumstances did help. Its adoption rates increased because of COVID.
“This is where contactless started to become something of a necessity, something of safety, something of a requirement, and because of that there is very little resistance; trust is already there,” he added.
"Is it [digital euro] going to be as private as cash? No. A digital currency will never be as anonymous and as protecting of privacy in many respects as cash, which is why cash will always be around": Christine Lagarde, BIS Innovation Summit, March 2023 #CBDC pic.twitter.com/BLMVOPax6a
— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) April 11, 2023
Meanwhile, European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde has been going around the world telling people that the digital euro CBDC would not eliminate cash, and that cash would always be an option.
Speaking at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) Innovation Summit in March 2023, Lagarde said that a digital currency will never be as anonymous as cash, and for that reason, cash will always be around.
“Is it [digital euro] going to be as private as cash? No,” she said.
A digital currency will never be as anonymous and as protecting of privacy in many respects as cash, which is why cash will always be around.
If people want to use cash in some countries or in some transactions, cash should be available.
“A digital currency is an alternative, is another means of payment and will not provide exactly the same level of privacy and anonymity as cash, but will be pretty close in terms of complete neutrality in relation to the data,” she added.
A WEF Agenda blog post from September, 2017, lists the “gradual obsolescence of paper currency” as being “characteristic of a well-designed CBDC.”
"You could have a potentially […] darker world where the government decides that [CBDC] can be used to purchase some things, but not other things that it deems less desirable like say ammunition, or drugs, or pornography, or something of the sort": Eswar Prasad, WEF #AMNC23 pic.twitter.com/KkWgaEWAR5
— Tim Hinchliffe (@TimHinchliffe) June 28, 2023
Last year at the WEF’s 14th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, aka “Summer Davos,” in Tianjing, China, Cornell University professor Eswar Prasad said that “we are at the cusp of physical currency essentially disappearing,” and that programmable CBDCs could take us to either a better or much darker place.
“If you think about the benefits of digital money, there are huge potential gains,” said Prasad, adding, “It’s not just about digital forms of digital currency; you can have programmability – units of central bank currency with expiry dates.
You could have […] a potentially better – or some people might say a darker world – where the government decides that units of central bank money can be used to purchase some things, but not other things that it deems less desirable like say ammunition, or drugs, or pornography, or something of the sort, and that is very powerful in terms of the use of a CBDC, and I think also extremely dangerous to central banks.
The WEF’s Special Meeting on Global Collaboration, Growth and Energy Development took place from April 27-29 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
“Saudi Arabia’s absolute monarchy restricts almost all political rights and civil liberties,” according to D.C.-based NGO Freedom House.
In the kingdom, “No officials at the national level are elected,” and “the regime relies on pervasive surveillance, the criminalization of dissent, appeals to sectarianism and ethnicity, and public spending supported by oil revenues to maintain power.”
Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.
Business
Parliamentary Budget Officer forecasts bigger deficits for years to come
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Author: Franco Terrazzano
“Every penny collected from the GST will now go to cover interest charges on the Trudeau government’s credit card”
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the federal government to cut spending and balance the budget following today’s Parliamentary Budget Officer report forecasting higher deficits.
“Budget 2024 was bad, but the PBO report forecasts the Trudeau government will be running even bigger deficits,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “This PBO report should be a wake-up call for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: get a hold of your spending or interest charges will keep ballooning.”
The PBO projects a $46-billion deficit this year. Budget 2024 projected a $40-billion deficit.
“PBO’s projected budgetary deficits are $5.3 billion higher annually, on average, over 2023-24 to 2028-29,” according to the report.
In Budget 2023, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government would find “savings of $15.4 billion over the next five years.”
However, “in Budget 2024, the government announced $61.2 billion in new spending,” according to the PBO. “Since Budget 2021, the government has announced a total of $251.6 billion in new spending measures.”
Interest charges on the debt are expected to cost taxpayers $54 billion this year, according to Budget 2024.
“Every penny collected from the GST will now go to cover interest charges on the Trudeau government’s credit card,” Terrazzano said. “Trudeau must balance the budget, cut spending and stop wasting more than $1 billion every week on interest charges.”
-
Education12 hours ago
Support a young reader through the Tim Hortons Smile Cookie campaign
-
Alberta1 day ago
Alberta’s vision for passenger rail
-
RCMP1 day ago
Red Deer RCMP arrest two individuals following ramming of police vehicle
-
Education1 day ago
Rebels earn Jim Donlevy Memorial Trophy as WHL Scholastic Team of the Year
-
COVID-192 days ago
Former Canadian lawmaker has no regrets about refusing COVID shot despite losing his job
-
COVID-192 days ago
Peckford: Hallelujah! Supreme Court of Canada to hear Newfoundland and Labrador charter case
-
John Stossel1 day ago
Why Biden’s Just Wrong: NO ONE “Knows How to Make Government Work.”
-
Alberta1 day ago
Three Calgary massage parlours linked to human trafficking investigation