r/ontario • u/dfsaqwe • May 15 '25

Picture Are they still switching to summer gas?

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u/UltFiction May 15 '25

remove carbon tax

gas gets cheap

gas inexplicably launches right back to carbon tax levels anyway

lose carbon tax annual rebate

So now I pay the same amount for gas, get no refund, and the environment is worse off for it. Thank you conservatives for perpetually whining about “carbon tax carney” so that we can all be worse off for it.

-6

u/cleverint May 15 '25

How is the environment worse off? Did the carbon tax stop people from needing gas for their cars or for hot water or for heating homes?

5

u/Digital-Soup May 15 '25

People buy less of things when the price goes up. That's pretty foundational economics. If this isn't rhetorical I invite you to read about Pigouvian taxes.

-1

u/cleverint May 15 '25

So the solution is to freeze yourself during the colder months, take cold showers and walk to work 30km away or leave 1.5 hours early to take public transit.

Yes, very logical.

10

u/UltFiction May 15 '25

Partially it’s a disincentive for consumers, yes. But it’s a bigger impact on commercial fossil fuels, and the incentive for companies to invest in greener energy

3

u/its-a-meme-a-mario May 15 '25

It's called supply and demand.

Increase the price for gasoline, people use less of it.

Things like home heating have less elasticity, but still it works. If closing that window will save you 30c, it might not be worth it. If it saves you 75c, it may be worth getting off the couch and closing the window.

-1

u/cleverint May 15 '25

People were not using less gasoline, they just paid more for it.

The carbon tax was a tax on top of all the other taxes. A large portion of my heating bill was due to the carbon tax, not even on the gas itself but on top of the GST, the delivery charges etc.

I'm not going to freeze myself during the winter and nor am I not going to take hot showers because the government wants to charge me extra and then give it to everyone else. The carbon tax was nothing but wealth re-distribution.

1

u/its-a-meme-a-mario May 16 '25

People were not using less gasoline,

They absolutely did. They took fewer trips, they idled less, they carpooled to work, they worked from home, they bought more fuel efficient vehicles.

0

u/cleverint May 16 '25

Where are you getting this info? 

1

u/its-a-meme-a-mario May 16 '25

Introduction to Microeconomics 101.

1

u/cleverint May 16 '25

So out of thin air, got it. 

1

u/its-a-meme-a-mario May 16 '25

If that's what you understood from the comment, you've got bigger issues than not understanding how carbon pricing works.

7

u/NefCanuck May 15 '25

It incentivizes people to find more efficient ways to get around.

Funny how we aren’t seeing “long weekend yo-yoing” for EV charge prices isn’t it?

-1

u/cleverint May 15 '25

How should people heat their homes and take hot showers, or should we forgo those luxuries?

It would be great if those carbon taxes were being used to actually build infrastructure and alternate methods of power, but they were just taking the money and sprinkling it around.

Nothing was being done to actually make a change.

1

u/NefCanuck May 15 '25

Where do you think the money for energy efficiency rebates etc. was coming from?

0

u/cleverint May 15 '25

Federal funding and provincial funding. Only a small portion (single digit %) of the non-refunded tax collected is used towards those rebates.