The federal director of Canada’s leading taxpayer advocacy group is releasing a new book on the disastrous carbon tax and its failure to address climate change.
Franco Terrazzano, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation officially released his book “Axing the Tax: The Rise and Fall of Canada’s Carbon Tax,” on Thursday.
The book has been nearly two decades in the making as the CTF has been researching and advocating against the tax since 2008 when British Columbia introduced its provincial carbon tax and Liberal leader Stéphane Dion proposed a federal version during the election.
Terrazzano’s book details the carbon tax’s initial promise, its failures, and how it was destined to fail from the start. The book aims to chronicle the real-life consequences of the “carbon tax experiment” and argues why it was such a “bad deal” for people and businesses forced to pay it.
“It’s about the decades-long fight of people fighting the elites in political circles, governments, bureaucracies, taxpayer-funded universities and colleges, and how the political elite tried to force carbon taxes on the people,” Terrazzano told True North in an interview. “And how the people never gave up, kept fighting. Kept fighting. Worked really hard, and they forced the Liberal government to back down on their carbon tax.”
Terrazzano said that despite Liberal Leader Mark Carney claiming to have “axed the tax,” the fight on behalf of taxpayers is far from over.
“The fight against the carbon tax is not over, yet. You still have politicians that are trying to relabel, repackage and hide carbon taxes,” Terrazzano said. “And this book also shows people what to look out for as the fight against the carbon tax continues.”
He emphasized that much of the research from the CTF’s two decades of advocacy went into his new book, aiming to prove to Canadians and readers that the carbon tax has only made their lives more expensive and hasn’t worked.
“The vast majority of countries don’t have national carbon taxes, including some of the largest emitting countries in the world,” he said. “A carbon tax was just punishing Canadians for filling up the car to get to work, for eating at home during the cold winter months. And of course, the carbon tax was making it more expensive for everyone in Canada to put food on the table.”
He said that a tax that punishes the necessities of life in Canada hasn’t and was never going to going to reduce emissions in high carbon emitting countries such as China, Russia, India, or the U.S.
As the Liberal party attempts to steal the thunder out of the “axe-the-tax” movement by reducing the consumer carbon price to zero while maintaining the carbon tax law, Terrazzano says the carbon tax remains a “huge issue” at the ballot box this election.
“The cost of living crisis is still with us. People are still struggling to afford groceries. People are still struggling to afford getting the kids to soccer practice. This is still a big issue,” he said. “Cost of living is still such a big concern for so many Canadians right now and make no mistake, the only major federal party leader who is committed to ending all carbon taxes is Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre.”
He said after the election is done, politicians can “crank the carbon tax back up.”
“Carney isn’t scrapping all carbon taxes. He said he wants to change the carbon tax. Carney wants to hit businesses with huge carbon taxes, and he hopes Canadians won’t notice when their life gets more expensive,” Terrazzano said. “Well, news flash, a carbon tax is a carbon tax is carbon tax, and a carbon tax on Canadian businesses will mean higher prices and fewer jobs for Canadians.”
Terrazzano believes the book will help inform both Canadians who aren’t as familiar with the carbon tax debate as well as those who have been following the issue for years.
“There’s a ton of political history in this book, there’s also some spicy details from behind the scenes of politics that’s never been discussed before, so it’s going to be a really interesting read for many people been following along the carbon tax fight for a long time,” he said.
Terrazzano hopes the book will “lay a blueprint” for Canadians on ending all carbon taxes and will inform them on “what to look out for” as academic green activists and politicians continue the attempt to force carbon taxes on the people.
The 124 page book, authored by Terrazzano and published by Sutherland House is set to release on April 10 an is now available to pre-order on Amazon.