“I drive to work, I can’t afford Dion’s Carbon tax“. That is the opening line of a Conservative attack ad I heard on CBC radio yesterday evening. The rest of the advertisement has a similar tone, indicating that Dion’s carbon tax will increase already high gas prices. The main problem with this ad -obvious to anyone who has been paying attention- is that Dion’s carbon tax wont add any new taxes to gasoline. Lets repeat that again just so we are all abundantly clear: Dion’s Green Shift includes NO NEW TAXES ON GASOLINE. In other words this add is nothing more than a lie, or as I said in the title of this post; bullshit, but that wont stop Harper and the Conservatives from using high gas prices to try and scare you.
Unfortunately Dion’s inability to explain the Green Shift to the public, and a media focused mostly on the political implications, rather that the details and merits of the policy, means that most Canadians have only heard the Conservative’s dishonest take on the policy, and may believe such obviously false claims. Canadians deserve better than this from our politicians, such outright lies have no place in the campaign. However we wont see the level of political discourse rise out of the gutter, until we start punishing politicians for lying.
But if you tax the people who produce the gasoline, gas prices will go up. That’s a given.
First of all oil is sold at the world price, so the price of Alberta’s tar sand oil wont change. Secondly the taxes that will be levied to Canadian refineries are small enough that they are not expected to have an effect on gas prices. Thirdly there will be no tax applied to the refining process where it occurs outside of our boarders.
So no the green shift wont have an impact on gas prices making the Conservatives’ ads nothing more than bullshit.