Trudeau still plans to tax your truck

Article content material

The Trudeau Liberals wish to ban gasoline-powered automobiles by 2035.

Article content material

They wish to transfer drivers and commuters to electrical automobiles as quickly as they’ll, however don’t you dare say that the Liberals wish to tax pickup vehicles and SUVs.

In the most well-liked column posted to the Toronto Solar web site this week, Kris Sims of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation detailed what she referred to as authorities plans to increase an present tax to a few of the hottest automobiles bought in Canada.

Sims truly took the time to learn the Trudeau authorities’s 2030 emissions reduction plan and observed a name for an growth of the “inexperienced levy” on what most would name fuel guzzlers.

She wrote how this is able to be utilized to standard pickup vehicles and SUVs if the federal government moved ahead with this concept. It will add $1,000 to the price of an F-150 or $4,000 a Ram 3500 heavy obligation pickup.

Article content material

Surroundings Minister Steven Guilbeault referred to as the column “disinformation” and “fearmongering” on Twitter and stated the payment on vehicles doesn’t exist.

Right here’s the issue: The fee already does exist. It was introduced in by the Harper authorities in 2007 and the Liberals’ newest emissions discount plan requires it to be expanded.

So why are they saying Sims is incorrect and her column is disinformation?

Partly it’s as a result of they’re nervous at angering individuals who drive a few of the hottest automobiles in Canada with a brand new and costly tax. It’s additionally that they’re hanging their hat on a technicality.

Whereas the decision for an expanded levy was printed within the authorities’s emissions discount plan, they’re saying that it was in an annex submitted by an advisory and that it isn’t authorities coverage.

Article content material

“There isn’t any proposed payment on vehicles by the federal authorities. This was a suggestion by an impartial physique in a report and isn’t authorities coverage,” Guilbeault stated in an announcement Thursday.

Right here’s why I believe you need to nonetheless control this difficulty. That is precisely the type of tax Guilbeault supported up to now and governments don’t embody recommendation they don’t like or agree with in reviews that they publish.

They included this suggestion precisely as a result of the minister does agree with it and even submitted it as a finances proposal earlier than he entered politics. In 2017 the environmental group Equiterre, which Minister Guilbeault was nonetheless employed by and was nonetheless the chief spokesman for on the time, referred to as for the inexperienced levy to be expanded in a lot the identical method this new report does.

Article content material

“It isn’t set at a excessive sufficient degree to create a shift in shopper buying choices in direction of extra environment friendly automobiles,” Equiterre said in their 2017 budget submission.

In addition they complained that standard automobiles together with the F-150 pickup, the Jeep Wrangler and Chrysler minivans ought to face the next tax primarily based on their CO2 emissions.

So, Guilbeault was the face of the group calling for such a tax in 2017, he’s now the minister in cost at atmosphere and he publishes a report that features a suggestion for such a tax, however he desires you to imagine he doesn’t wish to do that.

That doesn’t appear believable to me — not if you take a look at the place this authorities desires to take the nation. Maybe they’re feeling the warmth after being caught saying the quiet half out loud.

Both method, control your pockets if shopping for a truck, SUV or Jeep is in your future.

blilley@postmedia.com