Trudeau and McKenna’s carbon tax plan will only go higher

Trudeau’s Liberals finally released some of the data behind their carbon tax plan and what it tells me is that the price of gas, something Canadians are furious about, will only go higher.

An Environment Canada analysis says the federal government’s carbon pricing plan could eliminate up to 90 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2022.

That’s roughly equivalent to taking more than 20 million cars off the road, and accounts for about 12 per cent of the total amount of what Canada emitted in 2016.

Here is the problem, Trudeau has committed Canada to reduce carbon emissions to 30 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. According to Environment Canada, Canada’s emissions were 704 megatonnes in 2016, less than 1% below the 2005 mark of 729 megatonnes.

To meet Canada’s Paris targets we would have to get down to 510 megatonnes, this $50 a tonne carbon tax won’t get us there. In fact it will get us to 619 megatonnes under their best estimate.

So what does that mean?

The carbon tax will have to go higher, much higher.

Prime Minister Trudeau was asked about whether the carbon tax would mean higher gas prices. He was asked while he was in Vancouver where prices are above a$1.60 a litre.

His answer, make better choices.

“The incentives that come from better behaviour, better choices, making choices to be cleaner and greener is exactly what we want. When you put a price on what you don’t want, which is pollution, you encourage people to make better choices,” Trudeau said.

I took out the ums and ahs in the transcript of Trudeau’s remarks and in fairness, he only said 90% of the word behaviour but he said most of it so I kept it in.

But don’t you love a man who has never had to worry about stretching a dollar in his life, a man whose family hasn’t had to work since his grandfather struck in rich in the oil and gas business with a string of gas stations around Montreal, telling you to make better choices to engage in better behaviour.

Meaning do what he says.

And what Trudeau wants is higher gas prices. His carbon tax at $50 a tonne won’t get the job done so he will have to keep raising it, but not until after the next election. We all know about the December 2015 report from Environment Canada bureaucrats calling for a $300 a tonne carbon tax, their view was that was the price needed then to make up time.

What price will we need after the 2019 election and what will that do to the price of gas?

Trudeau’s $50 a tonne tax won’t get him to where it needs to go and that means he will have to raise and raise it and raise it until you and I do make better choices, his choices.

At that point Vancouver’s current price of $1.60 a litre will look like a bargain.