Carbon tax going up, housing affordability going down, building experts

[CdnFox]

https://winnipeg.citynews.ca/2024/03/22/carbon-tax-going-up-housing-affordability-going-down-building-experts/

Carbon tax hike is going to affect the entire industry of building and housing, industry leaders say.

“Our industry deals with a lot of big and heavy stuff where trucking is key to that. So raw goods getting moved to the manufacturer, manufacturer to the distributor, distributor to me and then me to the job sites of our customers. It just gets passed along because trucking is such a big portion of our business,” he explained.

She says the brunt of the costs of the carbon tax hike will be left with consumers, builders, potential homeowners, and people trying to rent.

“Every time there’s a material, so if you think of a lumber producer … they’re gonna be shipping material to a distributor. There’s going to be a carbon tax that’s embedded in there, which the distributor is going to pay. Then they’re gonna be shipping that material, which the next person is going to pay. So if you start taking that ‘nesting doll’, the end user is the homeowner, they’re gonna have a really tough time finding some affordable housing,” explained Kovach.

 

This is the concept that i was trying to drill into Moonbox's teeny tiny little mind the other day (and failed).   Unlike the GST - the Carbon tax gets passed on again and again as markup.

It becomes a 'cost' and business people mark up their costs. So as they put it here it's like a 'nesting doll' Where every step on the supply chain the next guy takes all the carbon tax paid to date, adds some to it, and passes it along. The cumulative amount is very substantial.

And with rising population fighting over fewer homes which will now cost more money - no wonder the RCMP are concerned that things could get violent in the near future.

[Venandi]

4 hours ago, CdnFox said:

the end user is the homeowner, they’re gonna have a really tough time

 

4 hours ago, CdnFox said:

And with rising population fighting over fewer homes which will now cost more money - no wonder the RCMP are concerned that things could get violent in the near future.

During the last election I recall there being a surprising (to me) level of support for the carbon tax. Just for fun I looked up a few news articles, depending on who you believe it ran at 65 - 75% support for the policy. The exact percentage doesn't matter really, the point is there was majority support and voters are now getting exactly what they voted for. 

As an aside here, one of the reasons I joined the forum is that I find myself in a constant state of astonishment and perplexity. On any number of current issues I'm barely able to suppress the urge to scream "what did you think was going to happen?" I foolishly hoped that a broader range of opinion and experience might convince me that I was being overly pessimistic, but alas, if anything my astonishment grows.

For me, applying simple soldier logic to most of this stuff always comes back to "what did you think was going to happen?"

- defund police, make bail easy, remove mandatory minimums... surprise, crime increases.

- Mass withdrawal from Afghanistan leaving behind a treasure trove of equipment... surprise, the ANA collapses in two minutes and ISIS regains a foothold. 

- support an unhinged level of immigration in the complete absence of the most basic plan to increase critical infrastructure.... well, surprise. 

I could go on at some  length but I won't. Each act of absurdity if looked at individually is, or might be, managed and compensated for on its own. But mixing them all together simultaneously is like mixing household chemicals in the bathtub, closing the door and lighting scented candles to mask the smell of chlorine without a single thought given to grade 9 chemistry. 

So, are people simply not paying attention or were they honestly expecting a different outcome? If it's the latter, I fear we are doomed. If the former, maybe experiencing some hard times is just what we need to get back on track and 8 years of JT is a valuable lesson for all. Hopefully the sort of lesson that lasts us about two generations as I have no desire to repeat any of it anytime soon.

 

Edited March 23 by Venandi

[CdnFox]

6 hours ago, Venandi said:

 

During the last election I recall there being a surprising (to me) level of support for the carbon tax. Just for fun I looked up a few news articles, depending on who you believe it ran at 65 - 75% support for the policy. The exact percentage doesn't matter really, the point is there was majority support and voters are now getting exactly what they voted for. 

 

There is a very strong Canadian trend (probably elsewhere too) that shows up again and again in polling .  Canadians are HAPPY to have expensive social justice experiements  and really like the ideas of spending money on  these things -  RIGHT UNTIL they see it affect their lives at all. Then their support comes to a screeching halt.

In 2021 inflation hadn't kicked in yet (and what there was was going to be transitory,  we promise - tell me the bank isn't influenced by the PM).

Interest rates hadn't gone up. Food was still affordable. Gas wasn't that bad.

Now - people see the actual effect and they can't afford food they used to be able to, they can barely afford a roof over their heads, and suddenly they care.

The support for carbon tax has gone down in direct proportion to how many people have had their mortgage come due at the new rates
 

Quote

 

As an aside here, one of the reasons I joined the forum is that I find myself in a constant state of astonishment and perplexity. On any number of current issues I'm barely able to suppress the urge to scream "what did you think was going to happen?" I foolishly hoped that a broader range of opinion and experience might convince me that I was being overly pessimistic, but alas, if anything my astonishment grows.

For me, applying simple soldier logic to most of this stuff always comes back to "what did you think was going to happen?"

- defund police, make bail easy, remove mandatory minimums... surprise, crime increases.

- Mass withdrawal from Afghanistan leaving behind a treasure trove of equipment... surprise, the ANA collapses in two minutes and ISIS regains a foothold. 

- support an unhinged level of immigration in the complete absence of the most basic plan to increase critical infrastructure.... well, surprise. 

I could go on at some  length but I won't. Each act of absurdity if looked at individually is, or might be, managed and compensated for on its own. But mixing them all together simultaneously is like mixing household chemicals in the bathtub, closing the door and lighting scented candles to mask the smell of chlorine without a single thought given to grade 9 chemistry. 

So, are people simply not paying attention or were they honestly expecting a different outcome? If it's the latter, I fear we are doomed. If the former, maybe experiencing some hard times is just what we need to get back on track and 8 years of JT is a valuable lesson for all. Hopefully the sort of lesson that lasts us about two generations as I have no desire to repeat any of it anytime soon.

 

Reminds me of that rice crispies commercial where nobody can say what rice crispies were made of.  It's RICE CRISPIES - what did you THINK they were made of?!!?!? 

Anyway you're right. People in general and Canadians in particular have an amazing ability to delude themselves about the consequences of their actions until those consequences punch them in the face.  And even then in many cases.

[herbie]

10 hours ago, Venandi said:

During the last election I recall there being a surprising (to me) level of support for the carbon tax. Just for fun I looked up a few news articles, depending on who you believe it ran at 65 - 75% support for the policy.

There still is. The whiners have just got LOUDER and think they're the majority. Nobody likes to pay a carbon tax, just like nobody likes to pay GST and income tax, but only so many of us are dumb enough to cancel them and think that will lower deficits and not lead to massive program cuts.
Heard someone pretending to be a young person on the radio claiming massive movement of youth to the party that's opposed every single benefit (child care, dental, pharmacare - hell way back to medical on Day One) that assists them and suddenly tries to convince us it supports working people despite its entire history of the contrary.
 

[CdnFox]

30 minutes ago, herbie said:

There still is. The whiners have just got LOUDER and think they're the majority. Nobody likes to pay a carbon tax, just like nobody likes to pay GST and income tax, but only so many of us are dumb enough to cancel them and think that will lower deficits and not lead to massive program cuts.

LOL - you said the quiet part out loud big guy -  Trudeau insists the gov't gives it all back and it's not a revenue generator.  So how could cancelling it lead to 'Massive program cuts'?

Simple - because he's lying and even you know it.

As to supporting the tax - sorry kiddo. You're wrong.

Here's how things stood in september last year , with 55 percent wanting it reduced or gone -

https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/canadians-carbon-tax-reduced-or-killed

And half of them didn't think it worked at all

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/nearly-half-of-canadians-think-carbon-tax-is-ineffective-at-fighting-climate-change-nanos-1.6681740

Now two thirds are now angry about this increase:

https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/two-thirds-of-canadians-oppose-april-1st-carbon-tax-increase-poll

So it's not a 'vocal minority' who don't like it.  The majority of canadians want it gone or severely cut back.

And that number has been climbing for a year and change now.

 

Once again - you're talking out of your ass with no facts.

 

 

[Venandi]

1 hour ago, herbie said:

The whiners have just got LOUDER and think they're the majority.

I predict the noise will get a lot loader (and broader in spectrum) assuming we stay the course on JT's plan to achieve emissions below 40% of 2005 values in less than 6 years.

I don't think Canadians are tuned into the enormity of the effort here.  The discussions around the carbon tax seem to be occurring in isolation, as if that's the only thing required from us when it actually appears to be the tip of a looming iceberg.

The government itself is unsure of the total carbon mitigation this  tax will have by 2030. Their best guess is that it will account for about 30% of the total, I'd call that pretty optimistic based on our current performance; independent estimates put it closer to 10%.

But lets assume for the moment that they're right.

If true, we better brace for incoming because it means that 66% of the total reductions will be coming from other sources. I'm not sure what those are but I'm pretty sure that the cost to consumers and disruption to the economy will be huge.

I'm wondering how the economic effects of that won't make the current pain seem like  the "good old days"  when viewed through the lens of tomorrow.

Barring a breakthrough in technology, how will this work? Were will the real meat in the carbon mitigation sandwich come from. People tend to talk about this euphemistically and in terms of "sectors." If we isolate but one of them for the sake of brevity,  It seems (to me) that each and every raid on our energy sector is going to be nothing more than a gift to foreign producers.  

The real issue here is the pain for gain ratio. If Canada only produces 1.8% of world's carbon and our land mass scrubs all of that and more, how much pain are you, we and us collectively willing to endure in an effort to lower it further?

Personally, I think we have only begone to whine... wait until we start shivering. 

 

Edited March 23 by Venandi

[CdnFox]

1 minute ago, Venandi said:

Personally, I think we have only begone to whine... wait until we start shivering. 

Nail meet hammer.