In what is widely seen as a strategic blunder, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pausing the carbon price on home heating oil has kicked off backlash from coast to coast, with new polling revealing collapsing support for his signature climate policy.
I don’t understand why they don’t use carbon tax revenues to fund public transit, electric car rebates, and other noticeable benefits. Instead, I pay carbon tax to heat my house, on my fuel and I still have to pay $20 a day in transit.
Instead, it’s a black hole of who knows where it goes. This is the Canadian way of solving problems though. More taxes and no accountability until it bites us in the ass.
I’m just going to edit to add:
Electric cars aren’t great in Canada. Distances are often too far and cold weather really restricts batteries. We will always need some type of fuel.
Same with home heating. Heat pumps don’t work in very cold weather. We will still need to burn fuel.
In both cases we are paying carbon tax when we really have choice of “cleaner” alternatives.
My mother does 35000km a year and she did it with a Nissan Leaf (250km range) until we moved far enough that she decided to get an i3 with the generator (180km electric + gas generator) so she can do it without having to charge the few times a year she’ll come visit, 95% of the time she doesn’t need gas at all and she only charges at home. Before getting the i3 she was renting a gas car once a year to visit our family just because of one stretch where she wasn’t sure the charging station would work. The Canadian average yearly mileage is less than half of that, it’s just excuses to not change to something new even if it’s better.
Not even going to touch on how wrong you are about the carbon tax because others have already covered that.
Edit: Heat pumps work at temperature under -25 and you can use other types of electric heaters for the days that go under that, no need to use fuel.
The federal carbon tax doesn’t go into a black hole its rebated back to taxpayers.
Atlantic Canada only got limited access to natural gas in the last fifteen years. Most homes are heated by electricity or fuel oil, both more expensive than NG. After the oil shocks of the 70s, governments incentivized switching to electricity. Over 60% of houses in NB are heated that way, mostly by baseboard heaters. Baseboards are roughly 100% efficient, while heat pumps are 2 to 3 times that.
Air to air heat pumps work down to about -20C, after that the heating coils will kick in. That’s when heat pumps gets more expensive, on par with baseboards.
Base rwd Model 3 has a range of 430kms. With a 20% drop, you’re still at 345kms in really cold weather. Even in Toronto, 75% of driving commutes are less than 25kms, and it’s the worst case scenario.
One thing people like to ignore, average house sizes have doubled since the 1960s (1200sq ft to 2400sq ft) even as families became smaller than ever. Add in stupid fashions like 10ft ceilings, and heating costs are going to go nowhere but up.
Ford analysed billions of km from their professional users to determine the range necessary on a full battery on the e-transit, they then increased that number by a good margin just in case.
200km. That’s the number they came up with after analysing the habits of people who use their vehicle daily for work and people who take their car to travel 15km to and from work complain that electric cars don’t have enough range with 300km+ available! Heck, you save so much on maintenance and gas that you can just rent a gas car when absolutely required!
It’s not a black hole. It’s nearly completely paid back to Canadians evenly such that most Canadians get more back.
What’s also neat is that every single province could do exactly what you’re suggesting. All the federal government mandated was a price on carbon, each province could implement whatever system they wanted.
Like everything these days, our worst problems are at the provincial levels, and people don’t seem to understand or realize that.
I know you had a lot of unbacked up claims in your comment, but I wanted to remind you that most people get money back from the carbon rebate then they paid in.
I don’t understand why they don’t use carbon tax revenues to fund public transit, electric car rebates, and other noticeable benefits. Instead, I pay carbon tax to heat my house, on my fuel and I still have to pay $20 a day in transit.
Instead, it’s a black hole of who knows where it goes. This is the Canadian way of solving problems though. More taxes and no accountability until it bites us in the ass.
I’m just going to edit to add:
Electric cars aren’t great in Canada. Distances are often too far and cold weather really restricts batteries. We will always need some type of fuel.
Same with home heating. Heat pumps don’t work in very cold weather. We will still need to burn fuel.
In both cases we are paying carbon tax when we really have choice of “cleaner” alternatives.
It goes into those cheques they mail out every few months, that they somehow completely failed to label “carbon tax rebate” cheques.
Oh fuck off
My mother does 35000km a year and she did it with a Nissan Leaf (250km range) until we moved far enough that she decided to get an i3 with the generator (180km electric + gas generator) so she can do it without having to charge the few times a year she’ll come visit, 95% of the time she doesn’t need gas at all and she only charges at home. Before getting the i3 she was renting a gas car once a year to visit our family just because of one stretch where she wasn’t sure the charging station would work. The Canadian average yearly mileage is less than half of that, it’s just excuses to not change to something new even if it’s better.
Not even going to touch on how wrong you are about the carbon tax because others have already covered that.
Edit: Heat pumps work at temperature under -25 and you can use other types of electric heaters for the days that go under that, no need to use fuel.
The federal carbon tax doesn’t go into a black hole its rebated back to taxpayers.
Atlantic Canada only got limited access to natural gas in the last fifteen years. Most homes are heated by electricity or fuel oil, both more expensive than NG. After the oil shocks of the 70s, governments incentivized switching to electricity. Over 60% of houses in NB are heated that way, mostly by baseboard heaters. Baseboards are roughly 100% efficient, while heat pumps are 2 to 3 times that.
Air to air heat pumps work down to about -20C, after that the heating coils will kick in. That’s when heat pumps gets more expensive, on par with baseboards.
Base rwd Model 3 has a range of 430kms. With a 20% drop, you’re still at 345kms in really cold weather. Even in Toronto, 75% of driving commutes are less than 25kms, and it’s the worst case scenario.
One thing people like to ignore, average house sizes have doubled since the 1960s (1200sq ft to 2400sq ft) even as families became smaller than ever. Add in stupid fashions like 10ft ceilings, and heating costs are going to go nowhere but up.
Ford analysed billions of km from their professional users to determine the range necessary on a full battery on the e-transit, they then increased that number by a good margin just in case.
200km. That’s the number they came up with after analysing the habits of people who use their vehicle daily for work and people who take their car to travel 15km to and from work complain that electric cars don’t have enough range with 300km+ available! Heck, you save so much on maintenance and gas that you can just rent a gas car when absolutely required!
It’s not a black hole. It’s nearly completely paid back to Canadians evenly such that most Canadians get more back.
What’s also neat is that every single province could do exactly what you’re suggesting. All the federal government mandated was a price on carbon, each province could implement whatever system they wanted.
Like everything these days, our worst problems are at the provincial levels, and people don’t seem to understand or realize that.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/axe-the-tax-and-carbon-rebate-how-canada-households-affected-1.7046905
I know you had a lot of unbacked up claims in your comment, but I wanted to remind you that most people get money back from the carbon rebate then they paid in.