A tax on pick-up trucks? Peddling political conspiracy theories should be left to the coffee-shoppers and lobby con artists, not bandied about by politicians.
For those not previously informed, rumours abounded of late that the Liberal government was planning an additional tax on pick-up trucks and other less-fuel-efficient vehicles as part of its climate strategy. It stemmed from a list of recommendations in a report received by government, but environment and climate change minister Steven Guilbeault publicly stated such a tax is not being considered.
That didn’t stop some politicians from using the resulting ballyhoo to pound the wedge between East and West, urban and rural. The matter was further inflamed via a published opinion piece from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation stating that the Liberal government intended to “hit Canadians with a big new tax on their trucks and sport utility vehicles.”
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Apparently, there aren’t enough legitimate things with which to condemn our national government, so a hot-button issue was invented.
The CTF director examined an annex to a federal report and suggested it would become national policy. Whether any government would add a tax to pick-up trucks isn’t known. After all, governments do change their minds occasionally. Case in point, the federal government once said there would never be a carbon tax on farm fuel. Evidently it doesn’t realize natural gas and propane are farm fuels.
But, for today, no tax on pick-up trucks and SUVs is planned. Liberal ministers said it was one of many recommendations listed by a task force assigned to look at environmental policy possibilities. If implemented, the truck tax recommendation would add pick-up trucks to the 2007 Harper government excise tax on fuel inefficient vehicles that we live with today.
Many folks feel they can trust their politicians and believe their representatives wouldn’t do anything that might further damage the national relationship between rural and urban, farming and non-farming, East and West, pickup and non-pickup driving Canadians.
Nevertheless, some Canadian politicians began using trucks in their campaigns a few years ago. Now they readily fill them up at the gas pumps on camera as they decry carbon taxes and question climate change policy.
Alberta premier Jason Kenny said the truck tax idea constituted a “punishing tax on working people for buying pick-up trucks.”
Conservative leadership hopeful and Ottawa area MP Pierre Poilievre said such a tax would “slap thousands in new taxes on anyone who buys a truck.”
Alberta MP John Barlow went so far as to don a farm broadcaster’s hat, stand in front of some straw bales and claim the fictitious tax was “another punch to the gut for hard working rural Canadians.”
With all that going on, small wonder that the matter gained a head of steam, raising ire in the West and in farming country.
Trucks are necessary for a large sector of working people. They are vital farm, industry and trade tools and there aren’t any viable alternatives to their use. Should any government place a tax on any farm tools without offering a better, more sustainable solution, it should be met with outrage.
Politicians may use pick-up trucks to haul their horse manure but they shouldn’t use them to drive a rift in a society already far too divided on environmental and political issues.
Karen Briere, Bruce Dyck, Barb Glen and Mike Raine collaborate in the writing of Western Producer editorials.
