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0 pointsTeever1y ago0 comments

Canada ultimately repealed the carbon tax because it was used as a political cudgel against the Liberal party that enacted it by the Conservative opposition in a sustained fashion for several years.

Which is dismaying because carbon taxes are a conservative solution to this problem and IIRC the first political entities to suggest the implementation of them in Canada were Conservative.

At the end of the day you have a nontrivial amount of the population, and many in positions of power who just outright deny environmental concerns and climate change as an existential threat.

They aren't going to approach this problem in good faith and it isn't obvious what the solution to their nefarious influence on policy should be.

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bryanlarsen1y ago

Canada's implementation had two problems:

1. The textbook implementation involves 3 parts: tax, rebate and tariff. Canada only did the first 2. They were in talks with Germany/EU to create a carbon tariff zone, but that never happens. Without the tariff the carbon tax is massively unfair to local producers.

2. The rebates were almost invisible. If they would have been cheques in the mail it would have had much more impact psychologically.

But I agree, the main problem was denialism and its use as a political cudgel. It should be hard to argue that carbon tax is stealing money when all of it is given back, but they successfully did that.

david-gpu1y ago

Broadly agreed. IMO the Canadian carbon tax had a marketing problem. It should have been called a Carbon Dividend. First, it would have replaced the negative connotation of the word "tax" with the positive connotation of the word "dividend -- and it would have been more accurate to how the program actually worked.

Second, and probably more important: the rebates showed up in your bank account with a description that didn't make the source obvious enough for laypeople. Had people seen monthly "CARBON DIVIDEND" credits in their bank accounts, they would have noticed.

smnrchrds1y ago

It was never called carbon tax, but carbon pricing. It being knows as carbon tax was the result of of opposition efforts. The same efforts and results would have happened had it been called dividend or anything else.

shawnz1y ago

In official communications it was called the Canada Carbon Rebate or previously the Climate Action Incentive

david-gpu1y ago

Both of which were terrible marketing wise.

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AntiEgo1y ago

The feds had it labeled, "Canada Carbon Rebate", and to even get that they had to fight the banks.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/carbon-pricing-rebates-land...

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bryanlarsen1y ago

Canada's implementation had two problems:

2. The rebates were almost invisible. If they would have been cheques in the mail it would have had much more impact psychologically.

david-gpu1y ago

smnrchrds1y ago

shawnz1y ago

In official communications it was called the Canada Carbon Rebate or previously the Climate Action Incentive

david-gpu1y ago

Both of which were terrible marketing wise.

1 more reply

AntiEgo1y ago

The feds had it labeled, "Canada Carbon Rebate", and to even get that they had to fight the banks.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/carbon-pricing-rebates-land...

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse