The principle of a universal Carbon tax should never have been violated and any weakening of its application invites others to follow.
The debacle caused by the Liberal government’s bizarre introduction of a partial exemption could have easily been avoided by thinking first about what goal it was supposed to achieve.
If the goal was to provide some relief for Canadians who have experienced higher home heating cost inflation than the rest of us, then the solution should just have been to provide such relief by direct payments on that basis directly without any reference to the Carbon tax.
The rebate could be calculated as some function of the difference between per btu home heating cost increase over the previous year and the national average for that increase.
This would have had the benefit of applying fairly to all of us on a basis other than mere geography or specific fuel type and with clarity as to why those who benefit deserve special treatment.
It may end up having the same geographically distributed effect this year but the justification for such inequality would be apparent in its method of calculation and the universality of the Carbon price would not have been compromised.
Is there any chance of persuading the government to roll back its current misguided tax exemption and replace it with such a fair and principled approach?
Source: Premiers unite to appeal for ‘fair’ carbon-price approach – The Globe and Mail