New Year, New Tax Hike

By Jeremy Patzer, MP for Cypress Hills—Grasslands

Another change of the calendar and another Liberal tax hike—happy new year!

January 1st saw more than just the ushering in of a new year. It brought us a tax increase from a government who promised not to raise taxes on Canadians this year. The Prime Minister has stood in the House of Commons many times making the same statement, that they will not raise taxes. He has also said that they are supporting the middle class and those working to join it, as if it is some elusive and elitist club. I guess we can add another broken Liberal promise to the ever-growing list.

Of course, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, not with this government recently committing to raise the carbon tax up to $170 per tonne by 2030. There isn’t a tax that a Liberal could refuse. All of this while municipalities and other jurisdictions have committed to and stood by their commitment to not raise taxes. People are losing their jobs due to government mandated closures and lockdowns, and to add insult to injury, the Liberals are now introducing the Clean Fuel Standard, which will make everyday expenses like fuel, home heating, groceries, and many other necessities more expensive.

The government’s platform for releasing regulatory changes to the public, The Canadian Gazette, noted that the Clean Fuel Standard will have the biggest impact on low and middle income earners. It also warns that it will reduce the GDP of Canada by 6.4 Billion by 2030 in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20.6 MT by 2030.

Spoiler Alert! The government wants to bring an end to life as you know it. The pandemic has only served to further prove this point. The Clean Fuel Standard and the Carbon Tax were specifically designed to drastically change your behaviour in forcing you to stop driving a vehicle that uses gas or diesel, to stop using gas or propane to heat your home in the winter, and stop generating power using fossil fuels.

By making these essentials for daily life in Canada so unaffordable, the government is continuing to take further control of our lives. If this was only about doing right by the environment, there are several other ways to protect the environment without stripping people of their way of life, such as carbon capture and storage which has been extremely successful at home in Saskatchewan. Industry leaders have indicated as much and warned us about the current path we are on. This is about so much more than just the environment. The data shows that this Liberal government is lying to Canadians. It’s time for the socialist ideology—blanketed in environmentalism—to stop before things get out of hand.

Canadians deserve better.