Elizabeth May and Stephane Dion want Canadians to be gas poor
Elizabeth May and Stephane Dion want Canadians to be gas poor. Pay more and more for gas until they can't afford much else. Maybe this is not what they really want to happen, but it will be the consequence of raising taxes on gas. Gas consumption is pretty much inelastic unless you are wealthy and have a lot of disposable income. Trying to choke off that disposable income used for driving by affluent Canadians will result in choking the rest of us...literally.
Elizabeth May wants Canadians to pay more for gas:
The Green party wants Canadian drivers to pay an extra 12 cents a litre at the gas pumps as the price of averting environmental "catastrophe."
Leader Elizabeth May is boasting that her party is the only one politically brave enough to call for carbon taxes that would discourage automobile use and finance other tax cuts that would allow consumers to make smarter environmental choices.
"Right now, the Green Party of Canada is the only Canadian political party prepared to state this obvious reality," May said yesterday. "We will use those carbon taxes to reduce taxes elsewhere."
Stephane Dion also believes Canadians pay far too little for gas (Montreal Gazette, August 24, 2005):
Canadians and many of his own colleagues might be cringing when they see the price at the pumps these days, but high gas prices are actually good for Canada in the medium and long term, said federal Environment Minister Stephane Dion.
Gas for cars is one of those inelastic expenses. By far most of the gas I burn is to get to work and back. In fact, we drive the car for little else except food shopping, another necessity, in large part because gas prices are already so high. We very deliberately plan any car travel for anything that is not absolutely necessary (an evening out to see a movie, for example) because of the cost of gas.
For a lot of middle class Canadians, that is true, and our economy suffers for it.
But according to Elizabeth May and Stephane Dion, we aren't suffering enough. Too many Canadians, more affluent than me, are still driving their cars too much.
So add another 10% or 20% to the price of gas, and draw down the amount of mileage driven by Canadians another 5% or 10%. Notice that I suspect that large increases in the price of gas do not create equally large decreases in gas usage. Why? Because gas consumption is inelastic. My house is here. My job is there. I tried to find a house large enough for my family that I could afford to rent as close as possible to work, and that turned out to be a fifteen minute drive. So every day I drive a half hour, to work and back. We already took out a car loan to buy a new car that was as fuel efficient as we could afford. Elizabeth May and Stephane Dion can crank up the gas price, but it won't stop me from driving. I don't have a choice. What I do have is a choice on clothes for the kids (more hand-me -downs), food (more Kraft Dinners), entertainment (cancel the Bell Expressvu). I've already cancelled magazine subscriptions, I haven't bought a book in months (maybe a year, I really can't remember), I've given up any hobbies that cost money, and the kids don't participate in any sports that require a large outlay in equipment or membership costs.
But because someone who makes more than me can still afford to buy gas, May and Dion want to cut another 10% or 20% out of my household budget. For instance, Stephane Dion makes $220,000 as Leader of the Opposition. How much do gas prices have to go up before people in his tax bracket stop driving their cars to their executive cottages in the Muskokas or the Gatineau Hills?
And when will the tax rises end? Who will say that 12 cent a liter increase will do the trick? Have Elizabeth May or Stephane Dion explained just what exactly the effect will be? Is the tax hike tied to some sort of measurement of gas consumption? If consumption goes down, does the tax get lowered? Does the tax continue to go up if gas consumption doesn't change? I know I won't be driving less. I can't drive less.
Elizabeth May says the gas tax collected will be given back to me in other tax cuts.
First off, I don't believe her. Her kind will use the money to plant trees or save whales or expropriate great swaths of land without compensation to turn into nature preserves. All for our own good, of course. Too bad I won't be able to drive the kids to see these nature preserves. Can't afford the gas, you see.
Second, what's the point of giving it back? If I pay $30 more a week for gas, but see $60 less taken in taxes off my paycheque every two weeks, how is the environment saved?
Third, if the tax cut comes back as a credit to buy a more fuel efficient car, well, that doesn't help me. I'm already saddled with a new car that I bought in order to be more fuel efficient. And will the new car be so fuel efficient that the increase in cost for gas, as well as the increase in the price of everything else (remember, your food is delivered by truck), is covered? I doubt it. And the gas tax goes up again, is there a button on the car that I just bought (assuming I could) that makes it even more fuel efficient? I don't think so. In any case, it's not like this new car is going to appear on the day the May-Dion gas tax takes effect.
Fourth, do I make too much money? Government promises to give the taxes collected back in other tax breaks are usually tied to the amount of money you make, meaning I probably won't get the money. The Universal Child Care Benefit is a refreshing break from that approach -- every child under six earns you $100 a month, no questions asked. Of course, at tax time it gets folded into your total earnings, but then I have opportunities like RRSPs to reduce my tax load. The point is, the money is given to you up front. Waiting for some sort of tax break tomorrow while paying a higher tax today? There is no money coming back under Elizabeth May's plan. I'd bet the farm on it.
Making me pay more for gas will lower my gas consumption only by raising the price so much that it makes it impossible for me to go to work. I don't use the car for much else. Her plan will make me gas poor, but won't do squat for the environment. If her plan does throw me out of work, and if I'm forced to feed my kids while unemployed, I can promise you I won't give a rat's ass about the environment. Everyone knows that the worst environmental records are held by countries with the high-tax command economies.
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Comments
both of those "public figures" fart too much!
what can we do about it?
Posted by: george at June 6, 2007 11:53 AM
The slightest breeze over the oil wells puts the prices up to say nothing of the hot air spouted by Lizzie May and her followers spurring them on further.
Maybe we'll be building horse stables in our yards and doing the Horse and Buggy thing. Wonder how much it'll cost to scoop the poop? Might be a good job for Suzuki, picking it up instead of shooting it.
If there's one thing this country doesn't need its trees. It's a vast, lush mass of greenery from coast to coast, much not even inhabited save for a thriving wildlife population.
It's the Urbanites and surrounding industrialized areas that have to clean up their acts and that can be done.
The brainless notion that Canada should pay China or Brazil or Russia for carbon credits, which is paying and enabling them to go on polluting is beyond reason.
Let's pull out a little intelligence here and use it as Harper is trying to do. He knows as anyone paying attention knows its mostly about the MONEY, that's the bottom line, they care nothing for the environment. It's to build more coal fired plants and make money on those of us who are paying them to do it. We pay them to pollute and buy their goods while we go out of business.
Great freaking arrangement for fools.
Posted by: Libby at June 6, 2007 11:58 AM
I'm wondering why the Tories haven't already jumped on this by linking May's crazy scheme to Dion, especially since he's on record supporting higher gas prices, too.
I suspect this will provide ammo for the next round of "Stephane Dion is not a leader" ads, coming to you in the fall TV season.
What was Dion thinking when he essentially made her his running mate? Oh yeah, I just about forgot. He's not a leader. Sorry.
Posted by: Dennis (Second Thoughts) at June 6, 2007 12:56 PM
That is an excellent summary of the EXACT situation facing most Canadian Families who's parents are aged 30 to 45 right now...
we'd all love to reduce our commute but housing costs close to the business centers we work in are too expensive... and more often than not the transit systems are too unreliable or take too long. (the additional cost of a car over transit that reduces my commute from 2 hrs to 30 min is well worth it as I'd much rather spend the 1 1/2 hour with my kids than a bunch of strangers)
there is little money for luxuries, everything is going to maintaining homes, cars, utilities and taxes, whats left goes into RRSP's or retirement savings as we all well know we won't be able to count on the CPP.
the plight of middle income canadians, (i.e. annual gross income between $40,000 and $85,000/yr is pretty severe... we make too much to be eligalbe for government help programs, and not quite enough to cover expenses, and no real prospect of the situation changing..
Since graduating from Univercity I've tried to make a go of living in Canada twice now, once right after graduation, the second about 5 years later... both times the taxes, and expenses have driven us to take jobs outside the country... once in Sctoland where my company artifically doubled my income by apying for housing and utilites, and secondly now we've been forced to take a position in the US... where I'm making 20% base income for the same job I was doing in Canada, and paying about 1/2 the taxes... trust me... it more than makes up for paying for medical insurance...
it's been 8 months in the US and we miss Canada, but to be brutally honest... Our financial situation here is vastly more tolerable... and now that that a month ago our youngest was born here I'm not so sure we will come back... assuming we can afford to that is.
Posted by: Sierra at June 6, 2007 01:15 PM
Is Elizabeth May inependently waelthy ?
If so, she will likely have no problem with imposing new tax after new tax on the "little people" becuase it will have very little effect on her personal wealth.
I believe she is the American born daughter of a lawyer, but I never do see her finances discussed anywhere, unlike Paul "Shipping Magnate" Martin and Danny "Millions" Williams.
Posted by: James Walker at June 6, 2007 01:27 PM
Sorry about that, I meant to ask if she was independently wealthy, not "waelthy".
Posted by: James Walker at June 6, 2007 01:28 PM
And all of this applies equally to all these programs to encourage Canadians to install energy efficient furnaces, appliances, lights, windows, etc. Since you have to have the money up front and then apply for the rebate most of these programs are out of reach for lower and most middle class Canadians. My problem is not wanting a new energy efficient furnace, its having the bucks in the first place. Raising taxes on electricy, gas, natural gas doesn't encourage me to install or purchase new energy effecient appliances - it prevents me from doing so by taking the money I could use for that away from me.
Posted by: William Ferris at June 6, 2007 01:43 PM
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Hey Steve... look on the bright side, cars are about to get cheaper.
"I've never been on the same page as Buzz Hargrove in my entire life... but, I'm travelling in a 2 ton metallic container at 70 miles per hour... I'm not sure I want it built by an illiterate, under-nourished, sub-minimum wage, freshly minted corporate vassal... whose last job was watering the family livestock."
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Posted by: neo at June 6, 2007 02:24 PM
Let me paraphrase the Macadamian:
"I hate the thought of driving in a car built by a Chinese who earns less than what union goons in Ontario think that he should be paid, therefore I tend to agree with the union goons that the government should use its laws and prisons to make it impossible for anyone to offer said vehicles for sale in my country."
Endorsements of violent coercion aimed at protecting one's prejudices just tend to roll off the keyboard, don't they? Of such whimsical and mischievious punditry are your shackles forged.
Posted by: at June 6, 2007 07:43 PM
One of the latest TAR SANDS PLANTS, that just started up, produces a barrel of crude oil for $13. The production costst of the rest of them are most assuredly in that ballpark...Buch dich!
Posted by: Feldwebel Wolfenstool at June 6, 2007 08:42 PM
Fifth point: ff we do cut back on gas, which taxes do they raise to make up for the shortfall now that we are all buying less gas, thus paying out less gas tax?
And according to the centre for policy alternatives, we are being gouged by the gas companies to the tune of 15c a litre. If May's 12c worked, and demand reduced, wouldn't gas companies lower prices to draw back that business? They supposedly have a 15c cushion on the price.:
http://hespeler.blogspot.com/2007/06/would-you-stop-driving-for-12c-litre.html
Posted by: Brian Gardiner at June 7, 2007 07:43 AM
It seems ridiculous to be forced to pay more money to get to the places where we "make money". I doubt very many people are guilty of abuse of carbon... why should the average citizen pay? If anything, we know unabated industrialization has led to global warming. If they want a carbon tax, they should be providing affordable alternatives and subsidies.
Posted by: R. Alexander at June 7, 2007 10:23 PM
This is simply the "economics of deconstruction".
Nay and Dion come from the same class of deconstructionist utopian elites who feel that they must demolish the existing stabilizing institutions of society ( like competitive markets and demand economics with insane command economics) to create a catastropy from which the utopian "new order" can arise.
Pretty spooky thinking at best...and you know damn well that the elites pushing this agenda will not share the economic/personal misery their policies cause the middle class...they will be insulated from it as a "special" political illuminary class exempt from restrictive policy.
Seriously, if driving (gas fueled transportation) becomes a "luxury" can you really see Liz May or Citoyen Dijon bicycling to parliament or going ox cart on a political campaign...not bloody likely.
When ever I see insulated elitist nihilists like May and Dion evangelizing how self destructive economics or public policy is good for us...I have to say "LEAD BY EXAMPLE ASSHAT!!"
Posted by: WL Mackenzie Redux at June 8, 2007 09:42 AM
Lizzy May sure knows how to pick her friends,NOT!
She bargains with and admires Dion for his great work on the Environment file, that's highly debatable, she's now pleading poverty and physical pain. Who's she going to link up with for aid is the question, Dion and the LPC have a problem with finances as well so no aid there.
They could probably do a cross country hot dog chow down fund-raising, probably could do it in three months by wagon train, spewing gas would not be an option.
It's amazing that the pollsters have the Liberals polling in the 30's but they can't attract any money.
Looks like the Nutty Professor Iggy has a head start with his $25.00 a head booze party for young Liberals at his own home.
Is he paying off old debts or padding for the next go-around?
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