OPINION: Carbon tax on trucking is a tax on everything

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Stop what you’re doing and look around.

Pretty much everything you see, from the shoes on your feet to the smartphone in your hands, was brought to you on a truck.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance just confirmed what common sense already made clear: The carbon tax is a huge tax on trucking, which makes “virtually every good” more expensive.

The CTA estimates the carbon tax will cost the Canadian trucking industry about $2 billion this year.

And that’s just for long-haul truckers. That estimate doesn’t include the thousands of short-haul truck trips within provinces.
Right now, the federal carbon tax is set at $80 per tonne.

That translates to 17 cents extra per litre of gasoline, 21 cents extra per litre of diesel, 15 cents extra per cubic metre of natural gas and 12 cents extra per litre of propane.

When truckers fill up their fuel tanks, they’re using hundreds of litres of diesel to haul our essential supplies, like food, across the country.

The carbon tax costs truckers about $200 every fill-up. Multiply that by the number of trucks on the roads, and bingo, you get the carbon tax costing the industry an extra $2 billion this year.

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to keep cranking up his carbon tax. And, as the carbon tax increases, so will the cost to truckers and all Canadians.

The CTA estimates the carbon tax will cost truckers $4 billion annually in 2030. By that time, the carbon tax will have cost Canadian truckers $26 billion since it was implemented.

And here’s why that matters to every Canadian:

“These added costs cannot be absorbed and must be passed on to customers,” the CTA said. “As virtually every good purchased by Canadian families and businesses involves truck transportation, this means those families and businesses are paying increasingly higher prices for those goods to pay for this ineffective tax.”

This is why the carbon tax makes everything cost more, including food at the grocery store.

But wait — there’s more. A farmer needs to grow that food first, before it’s loaded onto a truck. That farmer is carbon-taxed, too.

Farmers must pay the carbon tax on the natural gas and propane they use to dry grains and heat barns.

Keeping chickens warm in a poultry barn requires it to be heated at about 30 Celsius all year, including through the Canadian winter. Accomplishing that feat requires fuel, with farmers facing carbon tax bills costing thousands of dollars to keep those little yellow chicks hatching.

The carbon tax will cost farmers $1 billion by 2030, according to the parliamentary budget officer. The Trudeau government is punishing farmers for the sin of feeding us.

The Trudeau government is taxing farmers and truckers and that’s making food cost more.

Every time we turn around, we are paying the carbon tax. Filling up a minivan costs us about $13 extra. Heating our homes with natural gas costs $300 extra this year because of the carbon tax.

And nobody buys the government spin about rebates making people better off. The PBO says the carbon tax is a net overall cost for average families. And Ottawa doesn’t even pretend to rebate the almost $600 million it collects by charging the GST on top of the carbon tax.

Carbon-taxed when we drive. Carbon-taxed when we eat. Carbon-taxed when we haul supplies. Carbon-taxed when we buy anything. Carbon-taxed when we heat our homes.

With the carbon tax punishing our trucking industry to the tune of $2 billion this year, it’s more proof this is a tax on everything.

And it’s another reason why the government must scrap the carbon tax.

Franco Terrazzano is federal director and Kris Sims is Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation