Is the carbon tax an easy scapegoat for high food prices?

Last edited Sat Oct 7, 2023, 03:15 PM - Edit history (2)

Is the carbon tax an easy scapegoat for high food prices?

Affordability arguments in favour of killing the tax ignore the impact climate change has on food prices

Aaron Wherry · CBC News · Posted: Oct 07, 2023 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 11 hours ago

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/carbon-tax-food-prices-wherry-analysis-1.6989547

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Seven years ago this week, Justin Trudeau stood in the House of Commons and announced that his government would implement a national price on carbon emissions.

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But the Conservatives are also hammering away with television ads that blame the carbon tax for the high price of groceries, an argument that might hold particular power as Canadians prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's statements about the impact carbon pricing has on affordability ignore one big factor: the rebates. (Ben Nelms/CBC)
"Mr. Speaker, when one taxes the fuel of the farmers who make the food and the fuel of the truckers who ship the food, then one taxes all those who buy the food," Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre told the House this week, ably reenacting his party's ads.

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Kelleen Wiseman, academic director of the master of food and resource economics program at the University of British Columbia, said price increases from extreme weather events typically are temporary. But Mike von Massow, a professor of food economics at the University of Guelph, said "the impact of climate [on food prices] is at least an order of magnitude bigger than the impact of the carbon tax."

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And

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/carbon-tax-food-prices-wherry-analysis-1.6989547

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The Bank of Canada has estimated that the carbon tax increases inflation by 0.15 per cent. Trevor Tombe, an economist at the University of Calgary who has studied the impact of the carbon price on consumer costs, points to Statistics Canada data that suggests its impact on food prices is less than one per cent.

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