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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Thursday on Earth Day his intention to dramatically lower his target for reducing Canadas greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
Based on his record to date, Canadians should call it Manure Day.
Trudeau pledged during U.S. President Joe Bidens virtual climate change summit to lower Canadas target for reducing its greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) linked to human-induced climate change by as much as 45% below 2005 levels by 2030. Previously his target was 30%.
The PM, poised to fail to meet his 2015 promise to reduce Canadas emissions to 17% below 2005 levels by 2020 we wont know that officially until 2022, when Canada reports its 2020 emissions is repeating what Liberal and Conservative PMs have been doing for more than three decades.
That is: Set a target for the future, fail to meet it, set an even more unrealistic target for the future, fail to meet it, rinse and repeat.
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Its as Canadian as prime ministerial conflict of interest scandals and vaccine shortages.
Also notice Trudeaus bait-and-switch on timing.
In 2015, Trudeau gave himself five years to reach his first target in 2020.
Now he doesnt have to meet another target for 10 years, until 2030.
If he was actually serious about meeting his 2030 target, why is there no interim target for 2025?
Based on Canadas GHG emissions in 2019, the latest government figures we have, they would have had to drop by 117 million tonnes in 2020 to meet Trudeaus 2020 target, the equivalent of shutting down 100% of our agriculture sector and 80% of our electricity sector in a year.
Thats impossible, even with the pandemic recession reducing emissions globally.
Cutting Canadas emissions to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030 (Trudeaus minimum pledge is 40%) would require reducing our 2019 emissions of 730 million tonnes, to 406 million tonnes in a decade.
Thats a 324-million tonne cut, the equivalent of shutting down Canadas entire oil and gas, agriculture and electricity sectors in a decade.
Whats Trudeaus record so far?
Based on his governments data since he became PM in 2015, Canadas emissions have increased by seven million tonnes from 723 million in 2015 to 730 million in 2019.
Got that? Trudeaus pledged to reduce Canadas emissions by 324 million tonnes from 2020 to 2030, when his record from 2015 to 2019 has been to increase them by seven million tonnes.
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Canadians are paying a high price for Trudeaus failures $60 billion for climate action and clean growth from 2015 to 2019, and another $53.6 billion for Canadas green recovery since October, 2020, according to the prime minister himself.
Given all this, Canadians should question the effectiveness of Trudeaus carbon tax currently at $40 per tonne of emissions, rising to $170 per tonne in 2030, raising the cost of gasoline alone by almost 38 cents per litre, plus the cost of almost everything because almost all goods and services require fossil fuel energy.
While Trudeau always talks about his famous carbon tax rebates, they only apply in Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
His carbon tax is not revenue neutral as his government originally claimed, because federal and provincial sales taxes are imposed on top of it, taxes on a tax.
Eighty per cent of households do not end up better off financially even if you believe the governments numbers because its 70% when indirect costs are included. In Ontario, its down to 60%.