On the Right these days, lies are the common currency. Supriya Dwivedi writes:
Conservatives are incensed over a truck tax that does not exist. The outrage stems from an opinion piece in the Toronto Sun by a director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which claims the federal government is “planning to hit Canadians with a big new tax on their trucks and sport utility vehicles.”
The basis for the claim stems from recommendations provided to the government by an independent advisory panel, known as the Net-Zero Advisory Body (NZAB). The NZAB was created via section 20 of the Net Zero Emissions Accountability Act.
Section 13 of the act mandates that the “governments of the provinces, Indigenous peoples of Canada [and] the advisory body established under section 20” be provided with the opportunity to make submissions to the federal government.
The NZAB recommended, among other things, that the government “broaden Canada’s existing Green Levy (Excise Tax) for Fuel Inefficient Vehicles to include additional [internal combustion engine] vehicle types, such as pickup trucks.” This recommendation was included in the annex of the federal government’s recent emissions reduction plan, alongside recommendations from every province and territory, the Métis National Council, the Assembly of First Nations and the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami.
The environment minister is legally bound via section 13.1 of the act to ensure submissions made to the government are available to the public, hence the inclusion of all the submissions in the annex of the government report.
The Conservatives are apoplectic. But a little history is instructive:
The Alanis Morissette-level of irony in all this is that the existing excise tax on fuel-inefficient vehicles was brought in under former prime minister Stephen Harper in 2007. This salient detail seemed to have been edited out of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s opinion piece. It also went completely unmentioned by Conservative politicians like Alberta premier Jason Kenney and presumptive Conservative leadership front-runner Pierre Poilievre — even though they were members of the Harper government at the time.
It’s much easier to falsely claim this is a “punishing tax on working people for buying pickup trucks,” as Kenney asserted it to be, or that the federal government is looking to “slap thousands in new taxes on anyone who buys a truck,” as Poilievre tweeted.
In its most charitable interpretation, the folks who have been peddling the “truck tax” nonsense are merely too vacuous to understand the difference between an independent advisory body making non-binding recommendations to the federal government, and official government policy. Though it’s hard fathom that applies to politicians who have been in office for as long as Kenney and Poilievre.
Something to remember in all the outrage.
Image: macleans.ca
12 comments:
That's the contemporary Tories for you, Owen. They never let the facts get in the way of a good propaganda drive.
The Kabuki Theatre would be amusing if it wasn't so perniciously dangerous.
I say:
bring on the truck tax for anyone that doesn't have a zero in the second digit of their postal code.
It's Orwell's Memory Hole, Lorne. That's what happens to the facts. Once they go down the hole, they disappear.
Taxation for everyone, PoV.
I'm all in favour of such a tax. Pity it was not in the budget.
The real problem with modern Cons is trying recognizing the rare times they really are telling the truth. Of course, in Pierre's case we do not have that problem.
If you deal in lies, jrk, no one will believe you when you occasionally tell the truth.
@ Owen
The boy who cried wolf.
OT but amusing.
China’s judicial reforms in the past decade
Note the 24 hour service. I believe the legal system is a bit different from our Common Law one.
My Collin's dictionary defines "lie" as "to speak untruthfully with intent to mislead or deceive." As you point out, that's obviously what Conservatives are doing here. Yet the media won't call it a lie. They'll tiptoe up to the edge and say, "falsely claim," but they won't call it lying. This refusal to speak plain English, especially in the lede, does the reader no favour and hurts the credibility of publication.
Cap
Our son lives in a part of China that is locked down, jrk. It sounds like judicial reforms have been suspended there.
As Mark Twain wrote, Cap, "the difference between the right word and the wrong word is the difference between the lightning and the lightning bug."
I have driven a pick up truck my entire working life as a contractor. I have always been punished for driving such a vehicle every time I fill up at the pumps by virtue of the type of truck I drive and through the tax burden we all pay to various forms of Government for the luxury of working. Material costs, price of purchase of trucks, land transfer tax building permit costs, etc., etc., will soon put us all out of business in the very near future.
I used to work at a courier company, zoombats. Truckers don't have an easy time of it. And their backs pay the price. But this "new tax" is no such thing.
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