By Ray Rivers
January 16th, 2025
BURLINGTON, ON
Regardless of which party wins the upcoming federal election Canada’s carbon pricing may be gone. The NDP has decided they can win more votes in the West by siding with the Conservatives on this. Though there is not a chance in hell that Mr Singh will be forming the next government.
The emissions reduction impact of carbon pricing has been modest but then it is a progressive tax, intended to ramp up effectiveness over time – and these are still early days. The tax has also had a negligible impact on the economy, most likely thanks to the climate action rebate which taxpayer families receive quarterly. That rebate turns out to make carbon pricing a valuable income redistribution program – a sort of Robin Hood taking from the rich to pay to the poor.
But even Liberal leadership candidates are taking cover from the poison emanating from the mouths of the opposition leaders in Ottawa, Edmonton and Toronto. That poison comes in the form of disinformation and outright lies by the political leaders who, ironically, want you to trust your vote to them. But it is working – you know the more you repeat a lie, the more likely it is to be believed.
Carbon pricing was just one regulatory element of the federal effort to reduce fossil fuel emissions. There were also emission caps on the energy producers, fuel efficiency regulations and the 2035 ban on the sale of new gasoline powered vehicles. The carbon tax was intended to strengthen the effort to replace gas guzzlers with non-emitting vehicles by 2035. That phase out and not carbon pricing per se is the premier piece of the environmental puzzle that will ratchet down transportation carbon emissions. But it is also the one that threatens Big Oil more than all the others.
Phasing out the sale of new gas burning vehicles
The idea of phasing out the sale of new gas burning vehicles came out of one of those COP (Congress of the Parties) meetings held in Glasgow 2021. Only the US, Germany and China initially declined to comply, as did many auto manufacturers. Eventually all EU states and China have embraced this goal. So that leaves the US as the last holdout, likely under pressure from Big Oil and Big Auto. Still, 12 states led by California have now announced they are in.
California has led America in a number of environmental initiatives most notably the CAFE fuel efficiency standards which were adopted nationwide decades ago. It also has a plan to reduce the state carbon emissions by 40% but 2030, something which many observers consider a challenge. And then there is the 2035 phase-out of the sale of new gasoline vehicles with an interim goal of 35% by 2026.
California also has a carbon pricing program through its cap and trade emissions program. And it has reached out to like-minded partners, including B.C. and Quebec for a regional pilot greenhouse trading program. Ontario had also been included in that pilot until Mr. Ford came into power.
Tesla factory in Freemont California is one of the largest facilities in the state, capable of producing over a million cars a year.
So the state was a fitting location for Elon Musk to begin manufacturing the first significant American electric vehicle (EV) in one of the largest facilities in the state, capable of producing over a million cars a year. Since the first Tesla rolled off the assembly line in 2012, EV sales have climbed to 25% of all new car sales in the state. That is double the percentage Canada can claim and around four times the US average.
But the Golden State had also been America’s largest producer of oil back at the turn of the twentieth century and still produces a marginal quantity of oil as well as methane emitting orphan wells (over 5000). And the state is credited with inventing urban sprawl development forcing everyone to have to have a car to exist. So like other parts of the nation, it too is partly responsible for today’s climate change.
Donald Trump, Mr. drill-baby-drill, is a climate change denier and is surrounding himself with those of like minds. Recently his pick for energy secretary, Chris Wright, told a Senate committee that there is no relation between wildfires and climate change – almost as if he were right out of an Orwellian tale. But he comes out of the oil fracking industry, so nobody should be surprised.
The wildfires happening in one of the most admired and envied places on the continent are causing real harm to real people and all their worldly possessions. According to the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), climate change has contributed to an increase in the frequency, season length and burned area of wildfires – and its busy hands are evident in Southern California.
The Santa Ana winds sweep down from the deserts and across coastal Southern California further an already drought plagued landscape covering almost half of the entire state. Southern California hasn’t seen rain in months. All of these factors are climate change related but the kicker comes with these extraordinary near-hurricane winds which turn any potential spark into an unstoppable raging inferno.
Yes, we can ponder whether there was some arsonist at work or whether overheated power lines were too near the bone-dry vegetation. We could blame the water hydrants, intended for house fires, which have run dry. And we could heap blame on the democratic government leaders, the fire departments, or even the forestry managers for not raking the forests, as was Mr. Trump’s allegation last time in office. But the problem is climate change, the result of global warming.
The estimated costs even while the fires are still raging is in the vicinity of $150 billion. The insurance companies are cancelling policies and hopping on the next wagon train out of the state. And the new federal government is about to start washing its hands and lying, again, to all those people who elected it.
Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor, writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking. Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington. He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject. Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa. Tweet @rayzrivers
Background links:
Gas Guzzler phase out – Insurance – Wildfires – Climate Change – Cap and Trade Carbon Pricing –
Trump says “drill baby drill”, I call this article, “lie baby lie”.
Now the liberals with the risk of losing their jobs say that they are going to scrap the carbon tax, what a laugh, someone ought to point out that they are late to the table on this.
Next, there is little to no evidence of frequency and intensity of Santa Ana winds linked to climate change. “Santa Ana Winds of Southern California: Their climatology, extremes, and behavior spanning six and a half decades – Guzman‐Morales – 2016 – Geophysical Research Letters – Wiley Online Library”
Santa Ana winds have been around for thousands of years, can be most intense in December and January and are accelerated through the canyons that exist in areas like Malibu and Pacific Palisades. This is the “Venturi Effect”, similar to what happens with wind and tall buildings.
What we do know is that the Santa Ana winds of Tuesday January 7th were forecasted days in advance. I played golf that day in Fallbrook CA and prepared to play in windy conditions (we’ve been coming down here for 20 years and now spend our winters on the coast). I found it interesting that the area of the winds is relatively narrow and well defined, for example 80 miles south of Malibu in Carlsbad had very light winds that day.
What do we do know? One of the key reservoirs feeding Pacific Palisades was empty and offline for maintenance. It was like this for a month or more with no construction equipment onsite, why would the city do this during “Santa Ana season”. I worked for and in water utilities, if you have to take a reservoir down you do it quickly and during a time of low fire risk.
What seems to be in question is the initial response of LAFD, many residents sighting the absolute absence of the FD as their neighbourhood burned.
Fires commonly are started by arson or homeless/drug encampments. I’ve seen this at first hand least twice a winter here, in my case commonly in the valley between Hyw 76 and Camp Pendleton.
We do know that Newsom removed three dams that supplied fresh water to southern California in response to environmentalists. We do know that Newsom would not build an additional reservoir when he had a $10 billion bond to do so.
We also know that environmental policy in the state prohibits cutting of undergrowth in forests and creation of fire breaks.
I was here the last three winters when it was a wetter than average winter, photographs of the hillsides looked as if one was in Switzerland it was that green. I said to my wife, if the next winter is dry, this will be a problem if no one cuts back and cleans up the new growth from the last two or three winters.
Well here we are. The progressives are playing the climate change card. Dry winters follow wet winters and then another dry winter and the cycle repeats.
Myself and others on the ground are trying to assemble the facts.
At this stage there are more questions than answers, lots of politicians covering up, and the best of all the Mayor of LA telling residents to obtain information from the city’s web site at “URL”. Really, climate change or incompetence?
Lots to digest, I expect details of this disaster will come out in Congressional Hearings especially now that the state is looking for billions from the federal government.
I never understood the carbon tax. If its purpose is to reduce my fossil fuel consumption, why am I getting a rebate?
Re NDP.
My bet is that the NDP end up aa the official opposition.The Liberals will end up with a shell of party just like Bonnie Crombie.
Dear Philip – Thanks for commenting, but with respect, you really need to check your facts before you go on the record….
“Cal Fire’s total base wildfire protection budget has nearly tripled over the past 10 years (from $1.1bn in 2014‑2015 to $3bn in 2023‑2024), according to a March analysis by the Legislative Analyst’s Office before the 2024-2025 budget was approved. Cal Fire’s overall budget has also increased, with its combined budget for fire protection, emergency fire suppression, resource management and fire prevention more than doubling over the past 10 years from $1.7bn in 2014‑2015 to $3.7bn in 2023‑2024. Newsom’s office sent us similar information showing budget increases. The number of staff members working in fire prevention has similarly grown during that decade, rising from 5,756 to 10,275.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/16/fact-check-did-gavin-newsom-cut-100m-in-fire-prevention-funding
Ray, intelligent people don’t believe there is a link between so-called “climate change” and the wildfires in California; this is more disinformation from climate zealots. California has always had a dry climate in the coastal areas and yet knowing this, the state of California and the City of Los Angeles both cut back on their fire-fighting budgets–perhaps this is a more realistic place to start in analyzing the underlying causes of the wildfires.
And you still refuse to acknowledge what intelligent Canadians know. First, carbon emissions have NOT declined in any meaningful way to due to the Trudeau carbon taxes. Second, Canada is not a meaningful contributor to rising global emissions, not when China increased its emissions in 2023 by more than the total emissions in Canada. Three, for working Ontarians, when we analyze the DIRECT and INDIRECT carbon taxes that we are paying, the rebate comes nowhere close to covering those costs. Four, despite the attempt to misleadingly paint the carbon taxes as not contributing to inflation, the reality is that indirect taxes by their very nature are inflationary.
Divisive labels like “intelligent people” (that is, me) imply that people with other views or ideas are by definition stupid, and therefore I am right, and debate is futile. And also entitled to claim everyone else agrees with me.
I believe in the concept of a carbon tax but think that Trudeau and his handlers dropped the ball. The Canadian people would, in my opinion, understand a simple equation: Carbon tax $ in = sustainable or visable green energy project grants $ out . We ere never shown that the tax went anywhere but the federal government coffers. The government talked about climate change but did not connect it with real dollars spent from the hated tax to cause lower emissions. Perhaps none of it was used in grants to carbon removal capital projects or to related research. Without this information I can only assume that none was spent and only filled the coffers of a government that has gifted us with a $60 billion deficit. That will be their deserved legacy not carbon reduction projects or research.
And along with it the EV mandate. One has to wonder what would have happened if Trudeau and company has stuck to their original carbon tax promise along with a national EV charging initiative. Alas we may never know. But promises should mean something.