The federal government’s carbon tax was bad enough, with its punitive, regressive and unfair burden placed on provinces (like Saskatchewan) that are already hurting.
It was also unconscionable on a scale difficult to imagine when the heartless Liberal administration refused to have any compassion, common sense or mercy during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Liberals had an opportunity to show they are caring human beings, but failed miserably as Justin Trudeau insisted on maintaining and increasing the regressive tax on an economy that could not afford it.
Now, not content to bleed the West dry, they want to compound their sin by rubbing salt into the wounds with their Clean Fuel Standard, which includes “carbon intensity reduction requirements for liquid fuels”.
As with anything that originates with the Liberal government, it might sound good on the surface, but like a deadly iceberg, the hurtful parts are what lies underneath.
Saskatchewan’s Energy and Resources minister, Bronwyn Eyre, pointed out this will amount to a second carbon tax, and the “rubbing salt into the wound” aspect is this will be applied on top of the carbon tax on the same emissions.
It will further drive up the costs for the average resident and for businesses, and there is no justification for this, with the unfair carbon tax already doing this to us. One estimate is that fuel costs for industry will go up 15 per cent, and for Canadians just trying to make a living, it will add $15 to $20 billion a year with higher household gas bills and at the gas pump.
Just like the carbon tax, it will not improve or enhance the environment in any way, but it will give the Liberals more of our hard-earned money, and we will have far less of it to spend on things like food, clothing and shelter.
The government and anti-oil and gas activists have tried to justify this punitive tax by pleading the need to help curb climate change and bolster the environment. It would actually be nice if one cent of the carbon tax actually went towards doing that — but it hasn’t.
What it has done is bolster the Liberals’ profligate spending that is driving our economy into the ground with a huge debt and deficit that is going to be a lifetime burden for us, for our children and for our grandchildren.
And what will be the result? Instead of allowing our oil producers to provide the oil and gas that is actually still needed for everyday life, they will spend more to import it from other countries, many of which have some of the worst environmental standards in the world.
It will help their economies, and cripple ours, all with the veneer of helping the environment. This new “standard” seems to have the goal of hurting Canadians, not helping them.
