Exempt homeowners, hunters from carbon tax, Nunavut senator says
“July is looming when this burden on our already sky-high cost of living will come”
Senator Dennis Patterson said on May 14 that, in Nunavut, homeowners and hunters should be exempted from paying the federal government’s backstop carbon tax, which kicks in on July 1. (File photo)
Hunters and homeowners in Nunavut should be exempt from the federal government’s backstop carbon tax, says Nunavut Senator Dennis Patterson.
Patterson made the remarks on May 14, when the federal finance minister, Bill Morneau, appeared before the Senate to answer questions.
The federal government said last year that fuel used by the Qulliq Energy Corp.’s diesel-burning power plants and fuel used by aircraft flying inside Nunavut would be exempt from the backstop carbon tax.
But Patterson, in questions to Morneau, said consumers in Nunavut using other classes of fuel will suffer after the backstop carbon tax kicks in this July 1.
“If it was logical and fair to exempt some airline fuel and fuel used to generate electricity, why are our hunters and fishers, who depend on gasoline to provide precious country food for our citizens, and our fledgling growing middle class of private home owners, who heat their homes with diesel, also not exempt?” Patterson said.
“July is looming when this burden on our already sky-high cost of living will come. It’s not fair to burden our struggling citizens with higher costs of living for hunting and fishing, and diesel for heating their homes, when they have no alternative energy options,” he said.
Patterson also said that, in spite of the federal exemption for aircraft flying inside the territory only, aircraft that carry goods from southern Canada are not exempt.
“So all the food and goods that come by air from the south will still bear the increased cost of a carbon tax,” Patterson said.
Morneau responded by saying that 100 per cent of all backstop carbon tax revenues collected in Nunavut will be returned to Nunavut.
“The imposition, of course, is by province and by territory, so the revenues coming from Nunavut are going back to Nunavut,” Morneau said.
The backstop carbon tax applies only to provinces and territories that have not imposed their own price on greenhouse gas emissions, through either a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system.
Elsewhere in the country, in jurisdictions like Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick, whose governments have refused to impose a carbon tax, the federal government is offering tax filers a rebate that it calls a “climate action incentive payment.”
To claim it, people filing taxes in those provinces must fill out line 449 of their income tax return.
But in Nunavut, Ottawa is not giving the money back to the individuals filing taxes.
Instead, they’re giving the money back to the Government of Nunavut.
So in the first year of the backstop carbon tax, the GN is expected to rake in an estimated $15 million, while the tax will extract an extra $3 million from the pockets of Nunavummiut. Those figures will keep rising until 2022, when the carbon tax peaks at $50 per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions.
But the GN has yet to reveal how it will use the money that Ottawa will return to it.
For his part, Morneau said that decision is up to the GN.
“Our approach is to say that we are going to enable provinces and territories to choose the approach that best works for their situation,” he said.
It’s expected that the GN will announce its plans for its backstop carbon tax revenue sometime before July 1.
I would , a exemptions too
With our already high cost of living, why are we even paying income tax, GST and now this starting in July? What little dent this makes in federal government coffers would make a huge difference in the lives of Nunavummiut if we didn’t have to pay all those taxes.
That sounds like a very simple solution, Nunavummiuq, but it’s a bad solution. It is a good idea for Nunavummiut to pay income tax, because income tax is a tiered system. Those people in the territory that make much larger amounts of money will pay a higher percentage of their money to the federal government. Those that make very little money, pay little to no income tax. GST is a consumption tax. The more money you spend, the more GST you pay. So again, the people that have the money available to spend, will spend more money and pay more GST.
This money does go into the federal government coffers, but then it comes out of the coffers (plus a lot more) and goes into the hands of the GN who uses it for things that supposedly help the vulnerable population, such as Income Assistance. If income tax and GST were eliminated in Nunavut, the feds would just as simply lower the territorial financing formula for Nunavut and those programs such as Income Assistance, education, electricity subsidies, or any other number of programs would suffer.
Not only that, but GST and federal income tax (deductions aside) are consistent across the country. If you make an exception for Nunavut, then it becomes an administrative nightmare. And then you’ll have the NWT complaining that they should also be exempt.
If our power corp, airlines, hunters and homeowners are exempt, or will somehow be made exempt in the future, there will be no incentive for them to do anything to reduce their carbon footprint.
How ironic for a region of Canada that is seeing the worst immediate effects of climate change for so many important emitters to be let off the hook to do anything concrete about it.
Given how lackadaisical GN has been on carbon taxation, who knows what they will spend this money on. More Inuit teachers seems to be the crisis of the day so perhaps something like that or another equally irrelevant funding priority.
How we have gone from a Liberal promise, widely publicly supported, for putting a national price on air pollution 3 years ago to this ineffective legislative abomination is very sad to see.
We might as well not have a carbon tax.
So if the carbon tax is to convince people to reduce their fuel consumption(liberal policy) then does this mean that we in Nunavut will have to reduce our use of snow machines, boats and ATVs? How does this help us feed ourselves with country foods when we need that equipment to access the land and water.
GN make sure we get our carbon taxes returned to us like the rest of Canada and don’t use our money for “other projects”.
Most of the home owners in Nunavut are in Iqaluit. Most of the home owners in Iqaluit are speculators. They put 10% or 20% down, borrowed the rest from the bank, and are hoping to make a huge, tax-free profit when they sell their house in Iqaluit and move back down south.
Are those the Nunavummiut that you are trying to help?
How about trying to help the folks who are going to be hit hard when the price of everything they buy goes up because of inflation caused by Carbon Tax?
We will have to pay more for the taxi to take our groceries home because we don’t have the money to buy a car. Yes, taxi riders will pay the Carbon Tax, too.
I’m tired of these special considerations for home speculators. They destroyed the availability of housing lots by voting for that swimming pool. That pool is why the city has no money to develop housing lots and the lack of lots is preventing the construction of social housing and the shortage of housing is keeping house prices up. Enough from and for the home speculators.
Yes i am sure in Iqaluit, maybe even in Rankin there are Speculators. However who cares about them. dont give them a second thought, not worth it. however there are a lot of home owners that are not speculators, and a lot of others that hope to become homeowners in the future, they are the ones we need to think about. and i would say there are those that are a few hounded dollars a month from either possibly becoming a home owner or losing their home.
Also think about it this way for every family that is in their own home is one less in GN or public housing.
NU should not be given any special dispensation.
Senator: “Us”?