May 19, 2024 • 55 mins
Kris Sims and Aaron Pete explore the real-life impacts of the carbon tax, scrutinize government rebates and exemptions, and evaluate the broader economic consequences, while also discussing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's financial strategies and Pierre Poilievre's perspectives on fiscal policy and accountability.
Kris Sims, the Alberta Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, is a BCIT journalism graduate with a rich career history in radio, Parliament Hill, and CTV, passionate about advocating for taxpayers' rights.
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Episode Transcript
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Aaron Pete (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger
Than Me podcast.
Kris Sims (00:04):
Here is your host, Aaron P.
Aaron Pete (00:07):
Taxes are rarely a fun conversation, but today I'm
speaking with someone who isfighting to reduce them on
behalf of Canadians.
I am speaking with arepresentative of the Canadian
Taxpayers Federation on thecarbon tax capital gains, justin
Trudeau, pierre Polyev and somuch more.
My guest today is Chris Sims.
Chris, it is such a pleasure tosit back down with you.
(00:31):
With all these new taxes, Ithink there's a lot for us to
catch up on and I'd love to getyour perspective on these issues
.
But first would you mindbriefly introducing yourself?
Kris Sims (00:40):
Yeah for sure.
So my name is Chris Sims, andI'm the Alberta Director for the
Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
I was born and raised inBritish Columbia, though, so I
was very fortunate to be the BCDirector as well, so I'm able to
span a couple of provinces andspend a long time working on
Parliament Hill in Ottawa, happyto be back out west.
Here, I mostly like to focus onthings like smaller government,
(01:02):
more accountable government,lower taxes and more freedom for
Canadians.
Aaron Pete (01:06):
It wouldn't be a Canadian conversation if we
didn't start with the carbon tax.
It has been under assault frompremiers across Canada from the
Conservative leader.
Would you mind giving us arefresher on this tax and what
your perspective is?
Kris Sims (01:22):
For sure.
So, if I can start at the verybeginning, for the carbon tax in
Canada, it actually starts nearwhere you are there in British
Columbia.
Back in 2008, the then BCgovernment brought in the very
first carbon tax in all of NorthAmerica, and it's important to
point this out because back thenthe government told the British
(01:43):
Columbians many things.
They told them that the carbontax would be revenue neutral.
They said that it would stop at$30 per ton.
They said that it would reduceemissions and they said that it
would create a plethora ofaffordable alternative energies
that people could simply switchto.
Today, of course, none of thatis true.
(02:06):
It costs way more than $30 perton.
It was only revenue neutral fora couple of years or so.
Emissions, unfortunately, aregoing up and not down, and it's
really hard for the averageworking person there are some
people that can manage it, butfor the average working person
to actually find affordable,reliable, abundant alternative
energies.
(02:26):
I start with BC, because BC wasthe template for Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau's mandatoryfederal carbon tax.
So the federal government usedBritish Columbia as a model
actually, and said you know whatthat looks?
Great, let's impose a carbontax on all of Canada.
And so now we actually have acarbon tax that is $80 per ton.
(02:51):
That doesn't make sense tonormal people Like I don't know
about you, but I don't pick up aton of carbon on the way home
from the grocery store.
But what that means essentiallyis that it's 17 cents extra per
liter for gasoline and 21 centsextra per liter for diesel.
It also affects your homeheating the first federal carbon
(03:11):
tax and that is about 15 centsextra per cubic meter of natural
gas.
On average, a typical familyhome in Canada will wind up
spending around $350 or so perheating season just in a carbon
tax on natural gas.
For example, Propane is roughlysimilar.
(03:32):
Up until recently, furnace oilwas a little bit more, but they
recently did a car voteexemption at the federal level
for home heating with furnaceoil Primarily, though, all of
those houses nowadays are wayback east in the maritime
provinces.
So, as we come up to today,British Columbia still
technically has its own firstcarbon tax, but it's tied to
(03:56):
what we call the mandatoryminimum, so they wouldn't be
allowed to reduce their carbontax provincially below what
Justin Trudeau wants it to be.
Also, there's this weird littlesecret in British Columbia that
there's actually a second formof a carbon tax.
It doesn't hit home heating,yet, Don't tell them.
But it hits gasoline and dieseland it's pretty high.
(04:18):
It varies because it's based onan average price on the world
market but it floats around 17or 18 cents extra per gasoline
liter.
Same sort of thing for diesel.
That's why, for folks who'vedone the east-west trip, say
you've driven across theprairies and you've gone through
the Rockies and you go intoBritish Columbia, you'll all of
a sudden see the price jump atthe pump by around 17-ish cents
(04:42):
per liter.
That's why?
Because there's a hidden formof a second carbon tax.
So all in all, the carbon taxgenerally speaking across Canada
winds up costing families a lotof money, even net, even with
the rebates factored in.
Like, for example you probablysee that sign back there here in
Alberta, an average familyaverage is going to be out to
(05:04):
more than $900 this year, netwith rebates factored in because
of the carbon tax.
And those were theparliamentary budget officer's
numbers.
I just stuck them on a poster.
So that's where we're at rightnow when it comes to the carbon
tax in Canada.
Aaron Pete (05:19):
There is lots of meat to this bone.
Maybe let's start with homeheating oil, because this is
where I think a lot of politicalchallenges kind of started and
blossomed from and, if I'm notmistaken, the argument from the
government of the day underJustin Trudeau is that they were
being empathetic to thechallenges that existed with
(05:41):
individuals because home heatingoil is more expensive and they
were recognizing that bringingthis in was going to put
pressure on people in poverty.
How do you read that claim?
Is there merit to that claim?
How do we process that?
Kris Sims (05:55):
Well, good on you, because you nailed it exactly
where this path started forkingwhen it comes to the carbon tax,
and it was back when they hadthat carve out for home heating
oil.
Now, here at the TaxpayersFederation, we've been sounding
the alarm on this thing foryears that it costs people too
much money, that it's just afinancial punishment that
doesn't actually reduceemissions.
So why are we doing this?
(06:16):
But when it really becameobvious for what I would
describe as the mainstream mediaand kind of the main political
narrative in Canada you'reexactly right it was when the
Trudeau government created thiscar vote for home heating oil.
Now, you're right, officiallythe Trudeau government said
that's why they were doing it.
But of course, as you know,everything is political.
(06:37):
So I have a lot of family fromNova Scotia.
I owned a house out there withmy husband.
I actually know it pretty well.
So, especially in rural areas,a lot of people around 40-ish
percent of people in theMaritimes are still on home
heating oil.
So I say still because for along time, especially across the
(07:00):
prairies and a little bit inBritish Columbia back in the 80s
, a lot of people had oil tanksand there are these kind of big
round.
They look like a really bigtic-tac and they're outside of
your house and you fill it upwith what is listed usually as
light fuel oil.
When you're looking at a gridchart, what it is is furnace oil
.
It's kind of brownish gold,pretty smelly.
(07:23):
If you spill it and they fillit up and it runs a furnace.
For some reason and I'm notsure why folks in the Maritimes
held on to those furnaces andoil tanks longer.
So, like I said, close to halfof people in some regions of the
Maritimes are still on this.
What's interesting here is thatup until July 1st this past
(07:49):
Canada Day, the Maritimesweren't paying the backstop on
the carbon tax.
No, no, they had a special deal.
So say, on average you're goingto the gas pump and you're in I
don't know, dartmouth, whereverin Nova Scotia they'd be paying
around two or three cents fortheir version of a carbon tax in
Nova Scotia.
All of a sudden on July 1st,bam, they were brought on to the
(08:10):
federal carbon tax.
All of a sudden their price ofthe pump jumped by like 14 cents
a liter overnight.
Now it isn't just like you said, it isn't just filling up at
the pump, it's home heating oil.
So this is what happened.
All these members of parliament,who happened to be liberal,
were back in their constituencyoffices.
Okay, picture it, it'ssummertime, people are doing
(08:32):
their strawberry socials andhaving their box picnics and
stuff Super nice stuff thathappens in the Maritimes in the
summertime, just right out of aLucy Mon Montgomery movie.
All of a sudden, these voters,slash constituents, were coming
up to their MP saying whoa, thisjust jumped at the pump.
You better not be taxing myhome heating fuel, boy, when I
(08:55):
come to September to be fillingup the tank, are you?
And they were lost for ananswer.
Now, what's interesting here isthat, politically speaking, the
liberal MPs in the Atlanticcaucus so they separate by
regions when they get togetherin their little clubs, all
parties do it, not just theLiberals, but the Atlantic
Regional Caucus of the LiberalParty has most of the old guard
(09:16):
in it.
So you're going to get MPs thathave been around there for a
long time, like LawrenceMcCauley on Prince Edward Island
Island, okay, like DominicLeBlanc, okay, long timers.
They were not having this.
They were suddenly getting toldby their constituents you're
going to cost me what Like $600extra this winter on heating my
(09:38):
home so I don't freeze to deathso my pipes don't burst?
I don't think so, kid.
And then they turned around andpressured the prime minister.
And then the prime minister hadthat very hurriedly thrown
together press conference sayingyeah, we're going to exempt
home heating fuel.
What was interesting there, didyou notice Minister Stephen
Guilbeault was not at thatannouncement.
(09:59):
So that's where we're at rightnow, and you're absolutely right
for nailing that to be thepoint where the timeline
fractured when it came to themainstream narrative on carbon
tax.
Aaron Pete (10:10):
It seems like all of the premiers also realized this
is now a political issue.
You've moved this from a claimof just about the environment
and what's best, because theargument is this home heating
oil is actually bad for theenvironment, it's actually one
of the worst.
And so if this was just aboutthis one idea, which is
addressing climate change andaddressing emissions and doing
(10:30):
these things, then you wouldn'temit one of the worst polluters
and you'd be more careful.
And so once it caught wind thatthis is a political issue that
can be politicized, it's beenmoved forward.
How do you process PrimeMinister Trudeau's decision on
this?
Because he must have known atthe time this opens the door and
you can't close the door onceyou've opened it.
(10:51):
And so do you think if he couldgo back, he would change it?
Or did he know that there wereno options and he had to do it?
Now he just has to live with it.
Kris Sims (11:00):
That's a great question.
If I can speculate and I'm justspeaking for myself here I
don't think he thought about it.
I don't think he thought aboutit.
I think he just made aknee-jerk reaction because these
older MPs were probably yellingat him.
Announcement because it'sreally disastrous for him
(11:26):
politically from many differentangles, because you're right.
All of a sudden, this was anadmission that this is a
financial burden.
So you might remember that theconstant chorus and it still
hangs around now okay, issomething like this Don't worry
folks, the carbon tax is not afinancial punishment whatsoever.
In fact, you're going to getmore back than you pay in.
Just trust us.
Like they repeat that, moreback than you pay in all the
(11:49):
time.
Okay, so number one anyone witha shred of common sense knows
that that's silly, that thatdoesn't make sense because the
government does not generatewealth.
Okay, there is not some magicalfountain of actual gold backed
currency wealth generation underParliament Hill.
If you give them a $50 bill,they're not going to give you
(12:10):
back 80 bucks.
They can't do that.
The cost is always out thereand being borne by the people at
large in the larger economy.
So on the very surface, peopleare like that doesn't make sense
.
I can't give you money and getmore back like magically.
Number two the ParliamentaryBudget Office.
Again, I would encourageanybody.
It's really easy reading.
(12:34):
Honestly, it sounds complicated, but I promise you it's not.
It's very easy to understand.
They did a report and theyshowed that the average family
is going to be out net anywherebetween $400 and 900 something
dollars this year.
So, yeah, it's a financialpunishment.
And even if we were to takethat logic, if it's not a
financial punishment, how is itthat you're supposedly sticking
(12:58):
people off of oil and gasproducts, right?
I mean, if it's just magicallygoing to make us all wealthier,
why not make the carbon tax, Idon't know, a dollar per liter,
because we'll all be rich, right?
You see how that thinking isbizarre.
So all of a sudden, they had toadmit out loud with their faces
yeah, this costs people moneyand it's a problem.
(13:20):
And two, you nailed it.
They had to make this weirdclimb down specifically on
furnace oil, which just sohappens to have heavier
emissions than natural gas orpropane.
But they didn't give a carveout for natural gas and propane.
So the vast majority of us fromlike Ontario West use natural
(13:41):
gas to heat our homes.
There are folks, though I dowant to give a shout out to them
, especially there in BC wherehousing prices are so, so
expensive.
They do live in kind of an RVlifestyle.
For sure, they drive aroundquite a bit, they still.
They work jobs, right, all thatjazz, but they live in RVs.
And they also live in mobilehomes in trailer parks.
Those almost always use propanebut no carve out for them.
(14:05):
So this was just a giganticmess.
The fact that he like it waslike putting his foot in a
political bear trap, because nowhe's stuck both ways.
He's admitting that it's afinancial cost, of course, and
he's also giving an exemption toone of the heavier burning
fuels with no explanation.
The only thing you can come upwith is oh, we're going to give
(14:28):
money back on rebates for a heatpump.
Not everybody wants a heat pump.
Heat pumps can be prettyexpensive to install.
You have to maintain them allthe time.
That's usually a pretty seriouspersonal choice when it comes
to heating your home.
Also, I've read severalarticles where some home
insurance companies Also I'veread several articles where some
home insurance companies won'tinsure you.
If a heat pump is your onlysource of heat, you have to have
(14:49):
a more functional primarysource of heat.
Aaron Pete (14:57):
Or usually in most parts of Canada, they won't give
you insurance.
Yes, we have a community nearby, a First Nation community, that
tried to switch over to heatpumps and installed them all
outdoors and then realized thatduring extremely cold weather
events, when we hit like minus30 for a period, that they will
explode and they will fail onyou.
Kris Sims (15:12):
Oh my goodness, I didn't know that.
Aaron Pete (15:13):
All of those new units had those heat pumps fail,
with, I guess, water runningthrough them and stuff, and that
water froze and then, yeah,there was, so they had to
reorder new ones.
But going back to this rebatechallenge, it seems like this is
one of the harder things tokind of like wrap your head
around is how this rebate isworking.
One to your point.
(15:34):
You can't take somebody's money, manage it and have
administration costs of it andthen give back more money.
But the other thing that I feellike muddies my understanding
of this is when you're taxinggas and then you have delivery
truck drivers and the food ismoving around and it's hard to
calculate the impact of that aswell.
(15:55):
On top of this and I thinkmaybe I'm forgetting, but I
don't think the parliamentarybudget officer was able to
include those costs on how thatimpacts the cost of food overall
.
They can calculate for anindividual, but it's hard to
calculate the net effect of thistax.
Am I mistaken?
Kris Sims (16:13):
No, you're not mistaken at all.
And that's again.
You're really nailing it there,because quite often you'll hear
Prime Minister Trudeau againsay something silly like most
people get more back than theypay in.
Like I said, number one, that'sodd right, like that, just it
defies common sense and I don'tcare where you are on the
political spectrum, like thatshould be making you question
what the government says, that,um, but what?
(16:34):
What I think they were doing isif you open up the
parliamentary budget officer'sreport, he's got big grids there
, province by province, and itshows average family cost.
The top line is just directcost.
So you know, say you are Lauraand you're in Langley and you're
filling up your little HondaCivic, this cute little
(16:54):
hatchback of yours, and it costsyou around $850 extra to fill
it up.
In the carbon tax she'sprobably getting that back just
dollar for dollar, that oneexchange.
But what it wasn't factoring inwhen Trudeau says you get more
back than you pay in is what youjust said.
It is not factoring in how muchthe trucker is paying to fill
(17:17):
up his big rig full of diesel.
By the way, it's about $200extra every single time the
trucker's filling up, notcalculating how much the
maintenance person has to pay ontheir pickup truck, not
counting in how much the grocerystore has to pay to keep the
heat and lights and cooling andeverything going on natural gas,
which then you see how itlayers.
(17:38):
Oh, and farmers too.
A lot of people think thatfarmers are exempt from all fuel
taxes.
So if they fill up theirtractor with diesel, I think
it's still purple gas out therein BC I used to work at a gas
station and the marked gas waspurple.
Yeah, they get that for theirtractor, but farmers actually
have to pay the carbon tax ondrying their grain and heating
(17:59):
their barns.
So if you've got a chicken barnand you need to keep it at a
steady plus 30 degrees all yeararound, like good luck doing
that, I know, without naturalgas or propane I've seen some
bills for these farmers that arethousands of dollars in the
carbon tax.
Guess what that helps make foodcosts more.
(18:19):
So what the parliamentary budgetofficer did was put in kind of
a bottom line of net costs,including I think the term he
used was I'm trying toparaphrase it was like economic
factors or wider economicimplications, and that's what he
was talking about of, like thetrucker, the farmer, the grocery
store, the retail operator allthat crazy layering of carbon
(18:40):
tax costs when he came up withhis calculation.
So again, here in Alberta we'repretty oil and gas intensive.
It isn't just our home heatingthat we require natural gas, for
Most of our electricity.
The lights are being kept on inthis room right now because of
natural gas.
Out there in BC you guys havehydro and I know we have some
(19:00):
deals going back and forth basedon the cost where we can share
power.
But that carries carbon taximplications as well, and so
that is why Alberta families onaverage are getting hit the
hardest by the carbon tax, withrebates factored in.
Aaron Pete (19:16):
What would you say to a person?
I guess that is in thiscircumstance where we are seeing
more wildfires, we are seeingmore challenges on the planet.
Within my own region we have L.
We are seeing more challengeson the planet, like within my
own region.
We have Lytton that was burntto the ground, like we
understand that something needsto be done to prepare us Now,
like on the specific of Lytton,like there hasn't been houses
(19:36):
rebuilt from that.
So this whole idea that all ofthese things are going towards
addressing climate change issues, I have issues with because,
where I see them more direct, Idon't see the investments going
to where they would need to toaddress it.
But I think people are willingto support types of initiatives
like this in the hopes that theydo address this broader issue,
which is energy consumption,energy use, and they want to be
(19:59):
a part of the solution.
They don't want to be a part ofthe problem.
We have recycling programs,we're committed to doing good
things, but this has become apolitical issue and it's still
so hard for me to understandwhat the actual impact of
addressing climate change willbe through all of these new
taxes.
Again, if it's revenue neutral,hypothetically, then how is
this solving climate disastersand climate challenges and
(20:22):
wildfires and heat domes andice-cold winters?
How is it solving theseproblems?
What do you say to the personthat wants to address climate
change, wants to protect theirfamilies and future generations
and are being given this tax asa potential solution?
Kris Sims (20:37):
I love all of those questions and, to start off with
, I'm not a climate scientist,so I can't promise that the
solutions I'm about to offerwill work on these things.
However, I am a tax fighter andI do analyze data and numbers
all day.
I'm also a British Columbian.
(20:57):
I was in hope when Lytton burntdown.
It was awful.
Lytton was really special.
Where the two rivers meet, Imean, that's just a spiritual
place, and to know that it'sgone and that the homes still
haven't been rebuilt, it's myunderstanding that there's still
actually some investigationsongoing up in that region, if
you can believe it.
So, yeah, that was deeplyupsetting when it comes to this,
(21:22):
though upsetting when it comesto this, though, specifically
Canada and specifically thecarbon tax.
So this is going to sound harsh, but even if Canada didn't
exist God forbid, pretend weblinked out of existence it
wouldn't make a dent in globalemissions.
That's just the cold hard,mathematical fact.
(21:44):
In fact, you don't need tobelieve me if you don't want to.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeausaid exactly the same thing in
French on this really specialprogram a few years ago probably
2017, 2018, around there.
It was in Quebec and it was ona program called Tout le monde
en parle, and he said in Frenchbasically what I just said even
(22:07):
if we shut down everythingtomorrow so everybody stays in
their homes, stop eating, stopdriving, stop heating like you'd
stop, you'd not exist, right,it wouldn't make a dent in
global emissions, because we'reless than I think 1.2 or 1.3
percent, it varies, based on thecalculation.
So, even if you want to get upin the morning and dramatically
(22:29):
reduce global emissions, makingthe carbon tax $100 a liter in
Canada wouldn't move that needle.
What we could do, though, issell natural gas to a place like
India, and the reason why I useIndia is because they were part
of the Commonwealth for a longtime.
They're a democracy.
(22:49):
We have a lot of folks living,especially in British Columbia
whose ancestors come from there.
There's a lot of relatabilityto India, and India also has
asked to purchase our naturalgas, and the reason why we would
suggest this as an alternativeis because India is responsible
for a huge part of globalemissions.
(23:11):
Like.
Picture Canada being this much.
India is responsible for thismuch, and that's because they
have between two and 300 millionpeople.
Okay, like, close your eyes andpicture it like close to 10
times the amount of people.
It's a staggering amount ofpeople that burn wood and animal
dung every day.
(23:32):
I'm not even touching coal like.
Forget about the power plants,okay, just think about personal
cooking and home heating.
So and this is the Indiagovernment's numbers, okay, you
can look it up they burn thatevery single day wood and dried
animal dung.
So, number one, women andchildren need to gather that
every day.
Two, it is horrendous indoorair quality.
(23:55):
I can't imagine living in thatsort of a situation.
Three, it creates really heavyemissions, both particulate and
CO2 emissions.
So what they're actually tryingto do they're trying to change.
They're asking other countriesto sell them natural gas, which
would drastically reduce theirglobal emissions.
(24:16):
So we've got really goodenvironmental protection here,
really good labor laws.
It employs people from allwalks of life here in Canada the
oil and gas industry, andthey're asking to buy it.
So it just kind of seems like awin-win situation, whereas, no
matter what, even if you wantedto pay a sin tax, like I said,
of you know, $10 a liter extraon your carbon tax in Vancouver,
(24:39):
it's still not going to reduceglobal emissions.
Okay, and so that's why wewould encourage people to kind
of drop the carbon tax elementwhen you're thinking about
global emissions and try totackle the big end of the
arithmetic problem.
I will also point out that,generally speaking, okay, in
British Columbia and I use BC asan example, because, number one
(25:01):
, you're there.
Number two, I really miss it.
And number three, it was thefirst place to have a carbon tax
.
So we have a long, long datatrend.
If you take a look at the10-year-long amount of data that
we have for BC emissions,they're going up, not down.
So, outside of being like,forget about 2020, okay, even
(25:23):
outside of being locked in yourhomes and businesses being shut
down, obviously, there wasalmost nobody on the road
Outside of those years, it'sgone up and up and up.
I think it's gone up over 7%for the 10-year window that I
was just talking about, and evenduring the lockdowns, emissions
still managed to squeak up.
I was surprised to see that itdidn't drop off of a cliff, and
(25:47):
so this is what we're saying isthat people are backed into a
corner, and this is what Iwanted to raise too.
I hope I'm not taking too longto explain it, but there's so
many good people, like you justdescribed, okay, who think that
they're doing the right thing orthey want to do the right thing
and they're worried about theenvironment, they're worried
about emissions, but they don'thave an affordable, abundant
alternative energy that they canswitch to.
(26:09):
It's not like a paper orplastic grocery, grocery
shopping bag, or even sewingyour own from home, from like
recycled blue jeans or something, depending on how far you want
to go.
A lot of people don't have that.
Let's make a switch todifferent energy option,
otherwise they would have, whichis why you see this as an
inelastic demand in BC.
That's why you're seeing it.
Generally speaking, emissionskeep on going up, and this is
(26:33):
where it really gets me mad,because this is now just a
financial punishment.
So you've got working peoplebacked into a corner, especially
in places like British Columbia.
Often they have to commute longdistances.
Are you still near Chilliwack?
There in the Fraser Valley, yes, yeah, so you know there's tons
of people who drive into thecity like every day.
(26:53):
They have to commute on thehighway, and so I remember it
was one of the last things thathappened when I was in BC,
before I moved.
This lady called me.
She was in her 60s.
Her and her adult son wereliving together in a basement
(27:15):
suite in Chilliwack.
Their rent was $2,600 a monthin this basement suite back then
.
I think it's around the sameprice now, but back then gas was
two bucks a liter or a littlebit more.
She was crying because hertradesman son couldn't afford to
fill up his pickup truckbecause his job site was over in
Poco.
He had to drive there every dayfrom Chilliwack.
You know what kind of commutethat would be, and at more than
two bucks a liter.
And so she just kept askingwhat do I do?
(27:35):
What do I do?
This is where this is reallyfrustrating, because we're
getting all this financial painwithout the environmental gain.
So yeah, that's what I wouldsay is yeah, I feel it, and I
know that people really takethis seriously.
The problem is, is the carbontax in Canada is not the
solution?
Aaron Pete (27:52):
Pierre Polyev says axe the tax.
Is it as simple as that?
Kris Sims (27:56):
Yeah, it can be.
He can get this done beforelunch.
Another quick little thing,because you're in BC and I know
you love it the first.
You might be surprised I mightnot be telling you something you
don't know.
Actually you probably alreadyknow this, but the first
political party in Canada to runa campaign against the carbon
tax that even said ax the taxwas the British Columbia NDP.
(28:20):
That's right.
So back when Carol James, theformer finance minister, was
leader of the NDP, she calledGordon Campbell's idea to have a
revenue-neutral carbon taxlipstick on a pig.
I agree that was a really goodquote.
And then she ran an entireelection campaign on axing the
(28:42):
tax because she thought it wouldbe unfair to punish people for
heating their homes and drivingto work and eating food.
She was right then, and I can'tfor the life of me explain to
you why the provincial NewDemocrats in British Columbia
have lost sight of that.
In fact there's footage of JohnHorgan, before he became premier
(29:06):
, in the opposition benchesrailing against the carbon tax
in BC, and that was back when itwas about five cents a liter.
You guys are more than 30 centsa liter right now with your two
carbon taxes.
So my point of all this is ispoliticians can change their
minds, and the NDP reallyreversed course on the carbon
(29:26):
tax, unfortunately, and we wantthem to see them go back to
axing the tax.
So Pierre Polyev, he haspromised to ax the tax.
I think he has said on day onewe expect him to have it done
before lunchtime if he everbecomes prime minister.
Aaron Pete (29:42):
Fascinating.
Now we have to talk abouttaxing the ultra rich.
I'm interested to see if you'regoing to be able to convince me
that they don't deserve it,that they don't deserve this
punishment.
I have a firm belief thatpeople care less about poor
people, but they do really hatethe rich.
It offends them more.
Like when you start talkingabout Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk,
(30:05):
people just get like how darethey be that wealthy, we can't
look at their accomplishmentsand that we rely on Amazon or
that we love Teslas or any ofthose things.
It's just it offends us thatsomebody could be so wealthy and
have so much and we can have solittle at times.
So I'm curious as to what yourposition is on this new tax on
(30:25):
the ultra-rich and if you couldexplain it for people.
Kris Sims (30:27):
Yeah for sure.
So I wanted to differentiate.
There was a proposal that wasfloating around hard.
I mean, there were so manytrial balloons it blocked out
the sun, like people said it wasan eclipse, but like we know
that what it was.
So there was a proposal for awealth tax and that was to go
after like you just described,like the super-duper, ultra-rich
.
And even to that argument Iwould say okay, but you're
(30:51):
eventually going to run out ofGalen Weston's and Jimmy
Pattison's as yourboogeyman-slash-scapegoat, right
, because it seems so simple.
And hey, I don't think a wealthtax would affect anybody on
this chat right now.
But if we look at itpractically, it seems so simple,
right, find the guy with thetop hat and the monocle and the
(31:12):
bag with the money print on itand go take it right?
The problem is number one likeyou can't do that because that's
stealing.
Number two even as governmentone, you'll run out of those
people.
So there's only so many superduper, uber wealthy people.
Three they already pay a lot oftax, like a heck of a lot of
(31:33):
tax, in fact.
That's often why this is adirty little secret in the NHL.
That's often why we lose hockeyplayers to the States, I know,
because they pay way less incometax down there in the States
than they do up here, because wehave a pretty aggressive pay
scale when it comes to incometaxes in Canada, across the
country.
So basically, it doesn't work.
(31:55):
A wealth tax doesn't work.
And we can even look at France.
Okay, france tried a wealth tax.
So people who are that filthyrich, they're pretty smart and
they want to keep their money.
So they have a team of lawyersand accountants and, like tax
specialists who move their moneyaround the world.
Like way smarter than me, theyfigure out a way to keep that
(32:16):
money out of government's handsanyway.
Two, they'll just leave.
So that's what happened inFrance.
So all these super duperwealthy people said you know
what, this isn't really worth it, we're going to leave.
So much so that they had toreverse course.
The French government had tomake an announcement, tail
tucked between its legs.
You know what?
No more wealth tax, please comehome.
(32:37):
We're so sorry.
And apparently I can't rememberif it was Macron or who it was,
and I'm paraphrasing in Frenchwho it was.
And I'm paraphrasing in French.
He said we became Cuba, butwithout the sunshine.
So they tried that and itdidn't work.
So what they did do, though, isthey increased what's called
(32:57):
the capital gains tax.
So capital gain, if I'm alittle bit murky but say you've
got a lot of stocks andinvestments and you sell those
investments or stocks, you paytax on that, of course, even
though you're investing it withafter-tax money, by the way,
like you're taking your incomeafter it's been income-taxed and
sales-taxed and what's left,and you're investing it.
(33:17):
If you make money on it, guesswhat the government takes some
of that too.
It's kind of mind-numbing.
Only on the profits, thoughcorrect On the profits, though
correct On the profits, correct,correct.
And so what they did is theyincreased that percentage.
I forget to what.
Aaron Pete (33:30):
I think it's 50 to 66.6%.
Kris Sims (33:32):
Holy smokes, it's even higher than I thought.
I thought it was up to 50.
Yeah, so that's a lot.
Now, again, that may not affectpeople directly right now, but
here's how it will affect them.
Number one if you own asecondary property, say you have
a condo that's in a city, sayyou're living in like a
secondary city or the country,and you have a condo in a major
(33:53):
city that you know your kid usesfor university or you rent it
out and you're counting on it asyour nest egg.
That's a secondary property andyou pay capital gains tax on
that.
So this will mean that some ofthose properties, I think people
are going to hold off onselling them.
So that could become a problembecause that means that that
(34:14):
will slow down the supply ofhousing.
Number two this is actually nowaffecting doctors, so much so
that even anecdotally so I wasin Foothills Hospital in Calgary
recently with a friend of mineand two doctors, totally
unprompted, like saw my jacketand they said, yeah, I've got a
(34:34):
bunch of people I went to medschool with and they're all
thinking of moving to the Statesbecause of this capital gains
tax increase.
And that's because doctors, theway that their pay is
structured.
They're a private company,basically, and they have to pay
staff if they have an office andthe way it's structured they
were going to get nailed withhigher taxes because of this
move.
(34:54):
Now, I don't know, actually, ifthe federal government thought
this one through, because I suredon't think that they were
expecting doctors coming up andsaying you know what I'm out of
here.
And it wasn't just me hearingthis.
In Calgary this was raised sooften that a reporter asked a
minister in Trudeau's governmentabout this hey, what about all
(35:15):
these doctors saying you knowwhat?
I've had it, I'm leaving, Ialready pay a ton of money in
taxes and I'm going to headsouth?
The minister's response was soglib, said something to the
effect of oh, that's okay, we'lljust go hire doctors from other
countries, like as if there'ssome ready-made doctor store and
we can just go shopping at thedoctor store and that doctor
(35:36):
shortages are not like a globalproblem, especially for the west
, like.
So that makes me think thatthey didn't think this through.
So, by and large, wealth taxesare a little bit different from
capital gains taxes.
But the capital gains taxes,even if you don't think like you
know, you're not a wheelerdealer on the stock market or
whatever it will probably affectyou.
In the case that we're going tohave employers and people like
(36:00):
doctors, unfortunately takingthemselves and their money
elsewhere and keep in mind thatwe're not just losing then that
vital requirement of having adoctor in your town.
They're taking that wealth withthem.
So the income tax that they'realready paying, like today, that
the government is counting on,will then be gone.
That leaves a big hole,especially if you get a lot of
(36:24):
people who have a lot of money,who already pay a lot of income
tax and capital gains taxes,leaving.
Now we're getting into someserious deficit territory.
So this was not a smart move andI'll leave you one with this
which blew my mind.
So the amount that they'reincreasing it by like how much
they're going to collect in thisbig, you know let's balance the
(36:45):
budget on the backs of the rich.
One, they're never going tobalance the budget.
They have no plans whatsoeverto balance the budget.
Their deficit is more than $40billion.
Two, the Trudeau government isgoing to spend this tax increase
money.
In four days I have lunch meatin my fridge that is going to
(37:06):
last longer than how much moneythey're taking into this tax.
So it's pretty astonishing forthe amount of damage it's doing
versus the amount of money thatthey're going to be able to
spend for how many days.
It's a head scratcher.
I don't know why they did this.
Aaron Pete (37:20):
There's two pieces.
I should follow up on One.
I think it's after the first$200,000 or $250,000.
It goes up to the 66%.
It stays at the 50% below that.
Tim, feel free to fact check meon that.
Kris Sims (37:34):
It's a lot.
I know it's a lot yeah.
Aaron Pete (37:36):
And then two.
The other thing that I washearing Vashi Kaplos talk about
on her show was that doctorswere told and encouraged to use
the business structure that youjust described for the past 20
years as the mechanism tosupport them, and so government
changing course on this all of asudden, without any
consultation or discussion, isalso, I think, quite frustrating
(37:58):
to them, because they were toldand encouraged to use the
system that they use in order toplan for retirement.
And again it comes back to this.
I think people often they saythey love the poor and they want
to do things for the poor, butthey really just hate the rich,
because your doctor should befinancially comfortable, like we
don't want doctors to be justgetting by.
(38:21):
They provide an essentialservice in our society.
They help people get throughthings.
But I think the challenge and alot of different things are
coming to a head is I can't getmore than maybe 10 minutes with
my doctor, and there's a signthat I used to see in the
doctor's office that said oneproblem per meeting, and so I
(38:42):
think people are looking atdoctors right now and going I'm
not getting the best care fromyou to begin with, so maybe you
do deserve a punishment.
That would ideally encourageyou to act as a better actor in
this medical system, and I knowwe lack doctors and I know
they're stretched too thin, butso many things, it feels like,
are colliding on our healthcaresystem that are causing
challenges, and one of them isthis one issue per visit kind of
(39:05):
approach.
Kris Sims (39:06):
Yeah, it's a great question Are you getting good
value for money?
Right?
And I think, unfortunately,most of the things that the
government controls, includingthings like health care, the
answer is no.
Like these guys can't run apassport office, like they're
really bad at most things, andthat that's interesting, because
I had heard that whole thegovernment has encouraged us to
(39:28):
do this for a long time, like,do their structure this way?
And one of the doctors I wasspeaking with at the hospital
yeah, he said something like youcan't change the rules mid game
, Like this feels like it's abetrayal, and so I didn't quite.
I was trying to focus on myfriend, but I didn't quite know
exactly what he meant.
And then I went back andresearched it and you're
absolutely right that they wereencouraged to do it this way for
(39:50):
this long.
The same way, you know, a lotof Canadians have put all of
their nest egg into one basketin owning a home.
For folks who are able, whowere fortunate enough to be able
to own a home going back a fewyears, and now the government is
sniffing around home equity andmaybe we're going to try to
take wealth out of your homelike that.
(40:11):
That's been a verboten no-gozone since the 1970s like well
over a generation and nowthey're scared that the
government is going to changethe rules mid game.
Aaron Pete (40:21):
Very, very similar I'm gonna see how do you feel
about?
Feel about the Albertagovernment reneging on its
promise in regards to reducingtaxes.
Kris Sims (40:30):
Which one?
The income tax or putting thefuel tax back up?
Aaron Pete (40:34):
Whichever one you like.
Kris Sims (40:36):
So two things.
One, the income tax cut.
Now they campaigned on, if Ican recall correctly, tax cuts
for all Albertans.
I have not yet been able tofind and I've been going through
tape if they said when.
When are they going to reducethe base income tax rate from
10% down to 8%?
(40:57):
Because I'd really like to know.
So I'm trying to find that, butit was a big promise, like it
was one of those forefront, youknow window type promises during
the campaign where they woulddo this.
So for folks especially whomoved from British Columbia to
Alberta, you notice actuallythat your paycheck does go down
because the Alberta income taxat the lowest rate is higher
(41:18):
than BC's.
So as of right now, you pay 10%as the lowest base rate all the
way up to like $147,000 a yearor something.
So you're hitting a huge chunkof people there, like that is
nurses, that is police officers,plumbers, teachers, truck
drivers, like that's a big swathof human beings here in Alberta
(41:38):
, and they're taking 10%.
What they promised to do is toreduce the first $59,900 up to
$60,000 worth of earnings, downto eight.
Now that sounds a little wobbly, but essentially what it would
do, the government says, is saveyou around $760 each per year.
That's nothing to sneeze at,because if you're in a
(42:01):
two-person working family,you're now saving $1,500.
And now they're kicking the canon this.
They haven't said no, butthey're saying they're going to
wait till 2026 and they're goingto phase it in at 9% instead of
8%.
I will flag this, though.
I was in the budget lockup andthey're not accounting for it in
2026.
(42:21):
Like the way that their mathgoes, for their revenue intake
is staying at 10 percent fromwhat I could calculate, so we're
pretty concerned about this.
They made very many intimationsduring the election campaign
that this was going to happenrelatively quickly, but I'm
still trying to find out if areporter asked them when, and
(42:42):
then things will be kind of onlike Donkey Kong.
The other one is the gas tax, orthe fuel tax.
Now, to be fair, premier DanielSmith did get rid of it for an
entire calendar year.
Boom, 13 cents gone per literof gasoline and diesel.
We paid zero provincial fueltaxes here for more than a year.
It was awesome.
We had the lowest fuel taxes inall of Canada, lowest fuel
(43:04):
prices in all of Canada.
It was a really good thing.
And, yes, it was initiallyannounced as a formula based on
the price of a barrel of oil.
But when the premier reduced itall the way down to zero, she
said it was for affordabilityreasons, because we weren't at
the threshold, like it wouldn'thave automatically kicked in.
But she dropped it anywaybecause people were in so tough.
(43:25):
And so now I would argue thatpeople are still in really dire
financial situations, manypeople here in Alberta, and
that's why, again, we're tryingto appreciate what they already
did do.
To be fair, it was gone for ayear.
Yes, it was announced as part ofa formula with the price of a
barrel of oil fluctuates.
So when the price of a barrelof oil goes up really high,
(43:46):
they're going to take off thetax, but they examine it
quarterly.
But based on what Manitoba isdoing, for example, the NDP
premier there, wab Kanu, hascompletely gotten rid of his
fuel tax.
It's fully suspended.
They're saving 14 cents a liter.
So how is it that the UCPgovernment in Alberta is getting
beat out by the NDP governmentin Manitoba when it comes to
(44:08):
fuel taxes?
And again I can hear themyelling from Edmonton.
We do have a balanced budget,where Manitoba does have a big
deficit.
So again, we're trying to befair, but we really want them
working hard on this.
We want to see a reduction infuel taxes again here in Alberta
, because I get calls all thetime from people who are still
struggling with affordability.
Aaron Pete (44:28):
How did you feel about the video that Daniel
Smith made in regards to this?
Because kudos to her for atleast trying to explain herself
in a way that I often don't seeother politicians willing to
look into the camera.
Kris Sims (44:43):
So to be personal and kind of taking my CTF hat off.
So to be personal and kind oftaking my CTF hat off, I've
known the Premier professionallyfor 20-something years because
I was in radio for a long timeand she was in radio for a long
time and so we'd meet each otherat conferences and stuff and so
we're friendly.
I like her and a lot of peoplein Alberta like her.
She's a likable person.
You've probably seen the funnybets going back and forth
(45:05):
between her and Premier Eby.
There might be some sort of ahockey thing going on here.
Not sure They've got this betbetween themselves of wearing
jerseys of each other and allthat jazz.
So like she's fun to be aroundand she's pretty personable and
she's a good communicator.
So I thought it was smart forher to do a direct video
communication to people and itdid need an explanation to do a
(45:28):
direct video communication topeople and it did need an
explanation.
But again, I have to hold herfeet professionally to the fire
here because when she did fullyreduce it we weren't at more
than I think the threshold is$80 per barrel for West Texas
International.
We weren't there then.
It was lower then but she stillremoved it because people were
struggling with affordability,and so that is where I would
urge her.
(45:48):
Yes, premier, we know that youhad it gone for a year.
Yes, we know that it istechnically tied to a formula.
You did very good thingsbalancing the budget and keeping
spending reduced below the rateof inflation plus population
growth.
Those are all really goodthings.
But we would really like to seethis fuel tax come back down,
especially when the Albertataxpayer is giving hundreds of
(46:10):
millions of dollars to build theCalgary Flames a new NHL rink.
Why are taxpayers paying moneyinto a big mega sports complex
in Calgary where millionairesget to play a hockey game?
I love hockey Most Albertans do.
I know most British Columbiansdo too, but the NHL and the team
should pay for that themselves.
(46:30):
That should not be coming outof taxpayers' pockets.
And again, we don't care whatjersey you're wearing, if it's
blue or orange.
That should not be coming fromtaxpayers' pockets.
Also, we're still handing outmillions of dollars every year
in corporate welfare here inAlberta.
Millions of dollars every yearin corporate welfare here in
Alberta.
They're spending I forget howmany million right now, writing
up a plan as to how much a trainsystem would cost, like a
(47:00):
bullet train system acrossAlberta, like I don't know why
Every government does it.
I'm not picking on the UCP, butit seems that when a party
comes to power, give them a fewmonths and all of a sudden they
have that monorail episode fromthe Simpsons stuck in their head
.
They're just like, hey, let'sbuild a train, let's have a
study as to how much it's goingto cost to build a train.
Don't, no, don't, stop doingthat.
If a private company wants tobuild one, if there's a market
(47:21):
for it and a demand like fillyour boots, that sounds awesome.
I'd love to take the bullettrain to Banff, but we don't
think that average workers inMedicine Hat and Red Deer should
be putting money into somethingthat isn't really necessary.
So, all in all, like she's bangon with messaging.
She's a very good communicator,very friendly person, but we
still need to hold her toaccount when she makes promises,
(47:42):
and that includes reducingincome taxes, and that includes
providing affordability forAlbertans when needed, and so,
again, we would respectfullyurge her to take a look at that.
I'm betting that on July 1st,when the next quarterly update
happens, that we will see apretty dramatic reduction in
fuel taxes and maybe even a bitof a payback, a bit of a rebate,
(48:04):
because right now the price ofoil is pretty high and it's
stayed high for the last severalweeks.
Aaron Pete (48:09):
Can you give me your brief thoughts on Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau?
You've seen where he's at inthe polls.
I know that your organizationisn't one-sided for one
political organization or theother.
I'm just curious what are yourthoughts on Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau?
Kris Sims (48:25):
Pretty disastrous, to be really blunt.
And again you're right CanadianTaxpayers Federation we don't
care if it's a red jersey or ablue jersey, like, for example,
we gave former Liberal PrimeMinister Paul Martin an award
for slaying the deficit, likewith an actual ceremony and
everything, because he balancedthe budget, like we didn't care
(48:46):
that he was a liberal primeminister.
He did it Like his work asfinance minister was really
difficult and he managed toactually slay the deficit, which
was one of the reasons theTaxpayers Federation exists.
We started in 1990 opposing theGST and opposing big deficits,
and so then we saw leaders likeJohn Cretchen and Paul Martin
(49:08):
and John Manley really take thatbull by the horns and balance
the budget.
That was remarkable and goodand we have said so.
Trudeau is a completelydifferent kettle of fish.
I've been studying politics mywhole life.
He has doubled the debt.
When he went in it was morethan $600 billion.
It's now $1.2 trillion and hehas no plans to ever balance the
(49:33):
budget.
I think he doesn't quiteunderstand it because I'm just
guessing here someone who grewup never having to worry about
making rent or affording a carpayment or paying a bill he
doesn't seem to have a conceptof money and balancing it and
makes no apologies for it Toreally quickly.
To leave you with this we're$1.2 trillion in debt.
(49:55):
That is an enormous number.
If you started counting loonieslike Scrooge McDuck and you
started counting them up, itwould take you 30,000 years to
count to one trillion.
That is how I know my skin'scrawling.
That's how much debt we're inright now, with no plans to ever
balance it.
So yeah, really bad, likefailing grade fiscally from this
(50:19):
from this prime minister.
Aaron Pete (50:21):
Pierre Poliev.
He has his talking points right, but do you think he's going to
be able to deliver on a lot ofthe promises he's making?
Kris Sims (50:33):
We sure hope so.
So some of the main ones we'relooking for from him um, we've
spoken to him about this manytimes and again.
We don't force politicians tosign pledges or whatever, but we
do listen to their promises andthen we hold them accountable
afterwards, and some of thethings that he has promised are
things like scrapping the carbontax that sounds like it's going
to be right away.
Scrapping the gun confiscationso for legal, law-abiding
firearms owners, he said he'sgoing to reverse that.
(50:55):
He has said that he wants tostop funding the media with
taxpayers' money, so we'reexpecting him to do that.
So there's a few pretty majorpromises that we're expecting
him to keep.
How fast he's going to be ableto balance the budget, we're not
sure, but I'll give you thisand it gave me a bit of hope Our
(51:16):
federal director, great guyFranco Terrazano.
He went through the budget lineby line, and Trudeau could
balance his budget if he juststuck to 2021 levels of spending
.
So I know this was a huge,bloated budget back in 2021,
right, we're not talking about,like you know, austerity, you
(51:37):
know trying to recover from awar or something.
No, 2021 budget was huge.
If he simply scaled back tothat level of spending, we'd
have a balanced budget.
And so we're hoping that ifhe's elected prime minister and
that's a big if, because younever know what's going to
happen we're hoping he'll beable to balance the budget
really rapidly.
Aaron Pete (51:58):
Fascinating.
In 21-22, the CanadianTaxpayers Federation raised $5.2
million with the strength of55,653 donations.
Your donations aren'tcharitable, no, and you do not
accept foreign funding.
I'm just wondering if you'reable to talk a little bit more,
very briefly, about theorganization and why people
(52:21):
should support.
Kris Sims (52:22):
Oh, that means a lot to me.
So I was a radio producer and ahost for a long time and I
always liked the TaxpayersFederation for those reasons you
just described and because weare nonpartisan and we stand for
lower taxes, less waste andaccountable government.
Okay, those three things arepretty fundamental, and if you
have those three things, wethink you could live a better
(52:42):
life.
And so we do all sorts of stuff.
We give media interviews, we dolong-form podcasts like yours,
we do press conferences and wedo a big email reach.
So we have around 200 or sothousand supporters across
Canada.
Lots of folks there verygenerously donate.
The vast majority of themdonate around 100 bucks or less.
(53:04):
So these are retired policeofficers, they're small
businesses, they're farmersright, they're retirees who ran
shops their whole lives.
So we respond to our own emailsfrom our supporters every day,
and so I hear from them directlyall the time and we're really
grateful for them.
And so what they do is theykeep us going, they keep these
(53:26):
lights on, they paid for thissign, they paid for this jacket
so that I can talk to you, andso we rely wholly on donations.
We don't take foreign money and, to your point, we're not a
charity, we're a not-for-profit.
And because we're not a charitywe don't even give you a tax
receipt, because we don't wantto incur any cost to the public
(53:47):
purse.
So if you make us a donation,we really thank you, but you're
not going to be getting one ofthose big fat tax receipts from
it.
Aaron Pete (53:54):
Fascinating.
Chris, it's always a pleasureto sit down with you.
These issues are so complex,but I always appreciate that
you're able to break them downso we understand what's going to
impact us at the pump and givethose approximations, because
that's where people get lost inthe bureaucratic process and
you're passionate about theseissues.
You always bring it back to theindividuals who are directly
impacted the families puttingfood on the table, and I think
(54:17):
that's always where we need tobring our political discussions
back to.
We can get lost in grandioseideas of fixing the world and
solving all these problems, butit does impact the day-to-day
person and I think you're verygood at that.
So thank you, as always, forbeing willing to hop on.
Kris Sims (54:31):
Oh, thank you so much .
I'll leave you with thisanecdote You're filling up your
minivan it's $13 extra, just inthe carbon tax.
If you've got a light dutypickup truck, it's $20 extra per
fill up, just in the carbon tax.
And you do an excellent job onyour podcast, explaining things
in such a great way, and thankyou for covering them.
Aaron Pete (54:49):
It's my pleasure.
Go check it out.
Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
I highly recommend followingtheir work as they're helping
shine the light on a verycomplicated topic.
Thank you,
Welcome back to another episode of the Bigger
Than Me podcast.
Kris Sims (00:04):
Here is your host, Aaron P.
Aaron Pete (00:07):
Taxes are rarely a fun conversation, but today I'm
speaking with someone who isfighting to reduce them on
behalf of Canadians.
I am speaking with arepresentative of the Canadian
Taxpayers Federation on thecarbon tax capital gains, justin
Trudeau, pierre Polyev and somuch more.
My guest today is Chris Sims.
Chris, it is such a pleasure tosit back down with you.
(00:31):
With all these new taxes, Ithink there's a lot for us to
catch up on and I'd love to getyour perspective on these issues
.
But first would you mindbriefly introducing yourself?
Kris Sims (00:40):
Yeah for sure.
So my name is Chris Sims, andI'm the Alberta Director for the
Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
I was born and raised inBritish Columbia, though, so I
was very fortunate to be the BCDirector as well, so I'm able to
span a couple of provinces andspend a long time working on
Parliament Hill in Ottawa, happyto be back out west.
Here, I mostly like to focus onthings like smaller government,
(01:02):
more accountable government,lower taxes and more freedom for
Canadians.
Aaron Pete (01:06):
It wouldn't be a Canadian conversation if we
didn't start with the carbon tax.
It has been under assault frompremiers across Canada from the
Conservative leader.
Would you mind giving us arefresher on this tax and what
your perspective is?
Kris Sims (01:22):
For sure.
So, if I can start at the verybeginning, for the carbon tax in
Canada, it actually starts nearwhere you are there in British
Columbia.
Back in 2008, the then BCgovernment brought in the very
first carbon tax in all of NorthAmerica, and it's important to
point this out because back thenthe government told the British
(01:43):
Columbians many things.
They told them that the carbontax would be revenue neutral.
They said that it would stop at$30 per ton.
They said that it would reduceemissions and they said that it
would create a plethora ofaffordable alternative energies
that people could simply switchto.
Today, of course, none of thatis true.
(02:06):
It costs way more than $30 perton.
It was only revenue neutral fora couple of years or so.
Emissions, unfortunately, aregoing up and not down, and it's
really hard for the averageworking person there are some
people that can manage it, butfor the average working person
to actually find affordable,reliable, abundant alternative
energies.
(02:26):
I start with BC, because BC wasthe template for Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau's mandatoryfederal carbon tax.
So the federal government usedBritish Columbia as a model
actually, and said you know whatthat looks?
Great, let's impose a carbontax on all of Canada.
And so now we actually have acarbon tax that is $80 per ton.
(02:51):
That doesn't make sense tonormal people Like I don't know
about you, but I don't pick up aton of carbon on the way home
from the grocery store.
But what that means essentiallyis that it's 17 cents extra per
liter for gasoline and 21 centsextra per liter for diesel.
It also affects your homeheating the first federal carbon
(03:11):
tax and that is about 15 centsextra per cubic meter of natural
gas.
On average, a typical familyhome in Canada will wind up
spending around $350 or so perheating season just in a carbon
tax on natural gas.
For example, Propane is roughlysimilar.
(03:32):
Up until recently, furnace oilwas a little bit more, but they
recently did a car voteexemption at the federal level
for home heating with furnaceoil Primarily, though, all of
those houses nowadays are wayback east in the maritime
provinces.
So, as we come up to today,British Columbia still
technically has its own firstcarbon tax, but it's tied to
(03:56):
what we call the mandatoryminimum, so they wouldn't be
allowed to reduce their carbontax provincially below what
Justin Trudeau wants it to be.
Also, there's this weird littlesecret in British Columbia that
there's actually a second formof a carbon tax.
It doesn't hit home heating,yet, Don't tell them.
But it hits gasoline and dieseland it's pretty high.
(04:18):
It varies because it's based onan average price on the world
market but it floats around 17or 18 cents extra per gasoline
liter.
Same sort of thing for diesel.
That's why, for folks who'vedone the east-west trip, say
you've driven across theprairies and you've gone through
the Rockies and you go intoBritish Columbia, you'll all of
a sudden see the price jump atthe pump by around 17-ish cents
(04:42):
per liter.
That's why?
Because there's a hidden formof a second carbon tax.
So all in all, the carbon taxgenerally speaking across Canada
winds up costing families a lotof money, even net, even with
the rebates factored in.
Like, for example you probablysee that sign back there here in
Alberta, an average familyaverage is going to be out to
(05:04):
more than $900 this year, netwith rebates factored in because
of the carbon tax.
And those were theparliamentary budget officer's
numbers.
I just stuck them on a poster.
So that's where we're at rightnow when it comes to the carbon
tax in Canada.
Aaron Pete (05:19):
There is lots of meat to this bone.
Maybe let's start with homeheating oil, because this is
where I think a lot of politicalchallenges kind of started and
blossomed from and, if I'm notmistaken, the argument from the
government of the day underJustin Trudeau is that they were
being empathetic to thechallenges that existed with
(05:41):
individuals because home heatingoil is more expensive and they
were recognizing that bringingthis in was going to put
pressure on people in poverty.
How do you read that claim?
Is there merit to that claim?
How do we process that?
Kris Sims (05:55):
Well, good on you, because you nailed it exactly
where this path started forkingwhen it comes to the carbon tax,
and it was back when they hadthat carve out for home heating
oil.
Now, here at the TaxpayersFederation, we've been sounding
the alarm on this thing foryears that it costs people too
much money, that it's just afinancial punishment that
doesn't actually reduceemissions.
So why are we doing this?
(06:16):
But when it really becameobvious for what I would
describe as the mainstream mediaand kind of the main political
narrative in Canada you'reexactly right it was when the
Trudeau government created thiscar vote for home heating oil.
Now, you're right, officiallythe Trudeau government said
that's why they were doing it.
But of course, as you know,everything is political.
(06:37):
So I have a lot of family fromNova Scotia.
I owned a house out there withmy husband.
I actually know it pretty well.
So, especially in rural areas,a lot of people around 40-ish
percent of people in theMaritimes are still on home
heating oil.
So I say still because for along time, especially across the
(07:00):
prairies and a little bit inBritish Columbia back in the 80s
, a lot of people had oil tanksand there are these kind of big
round.
They look like a really bigtic-tac and they're outside of
your house and you fill it upwith what is listed usually as
light fuel oil.
When you're looking at a gridchart, what it is is furnace oil
.
It's kind of brownish gold,pretty smelly.
(07:23):
If you spill it and they fillit up and it runs a furnace.
For some reason and I'm notsure why folks in the Maritimes
held on to those furnaces andoil tanks longer.
So, like I said, close to halfof people in some regions of the
Maritimes are still on this.
What's interesting here is thatup until July 1st this past
(07:49):
Canada Day, the Maritimesweren't paying the backstop on
the carbon tax.
No, no, they had a special deal.
So say, on average you're goingto the gas pump and you're in I
don't know, dartmouth, whereverin Nova Scotia they'd be paying
around two or three cents fortheir version of a carbon tax in
Nova Scotia.
All of a sudden on July 1st,bam, they were brought on to the
(08:10):
federal carbon tax.
All of a sudden their price ofthe pump jumped by like 14 cents
a liter overnight.
Now it isn't just like you said, it isn't just filling up at
the pump, it's home heating oil.
So this is what happened.
All these members of parliament,who happened to be liberal,
were back in their constituencyoffices.
Okay, picture it, it'ssummertime, people are doing
(08:32):
their strawberry socials andhaving their box picnics and
stuff Super nice stuff thathappens in the Maritimes in the
summertime, just right out of aLucy Mon Montgomery movie.
All of a sudden, these voters,slash constituents, were coming
up to their MP saying whoa, thisjust jumped at the pump.
You better not be taxing myhome heating fuel, boy, when I
(08:55):
come to September to be fillingup the tank, are you?
And they were lost for ananswer.
Now, what's interesting here isthat, politically speaking, the
liberal MPs in the Atlanticcaucus so they separate by
regions when they get togetherin their little clubs, all
parties do it, not just theLiberals, but the Atlantic
Regional Caucus of the LiberalParty has most of the old guard
(09:16):
in it.
So you're going to get MPs thathave been around there for a
long time, like LawrenceMcCauley on Prince Edward Island
Island, okay, like DominicLeBlanc, okay, long timers.
They were not having this.
They were suddenly getting toldby their constituents you're
going to cost me what Like $600extra this winter on heating my
(09:38):
home so I don't freeze to deathso my pipes don't burst?
I don't think so, kid.
And then they turned around andpressured the prime minister.
And then the prime minister hadthat very hurriedly thrown
together press conference sayingyeah, we're going to exempt
home heating fuel.
What was interesting there, didyou notice Minister Stephen
Guilbeault was not at thatannouncement.
(09:59):
So that's where we're at rightnow, and you're absolutely right
for nailing that to be thepoint where the timeline
fractured when it came to themainstream narrative on carbon
tax.
Aaron Pete (10:10):
It seems like all of the premiers also realized this
is now a political issue.
You've moved this from a claimof just about the environment
and what's best, because theargument is this home heating
oil is actually bad for theenvironment, it's actually one
of the worst.
And so if this was just aboutthis one idea, which is
addressing climate change andaddressing emissions and doing
(10:30):
these things, then you wouldn'temit one of the worst polluters
and you'd be more careful.
And so once it caught wind thatthis is a political issue that
can be politicized, it's beenmoved forward.
How do you process PrimeMinister Trudeau's decision on
this?
Because he must have known atthe time this opens the door and
you can't close the door onceyou've opened it.
(10:51):
And so do you think if he couldgo back, he would change it?
Or did he know that there wereno options and he had to do it?
Now he just has to live with it.
Kris Sims (11:00):
That's a great question.
If I can speculate and I'm justspeaking for myself here I
don't think he thought about it.
I don't think he thought aboutit.
I think he just made aknee-jerk reaction because these
older MPs were probably yellingat him.
Announcement because it'sreally disastrous for him
(11:26):
politically from many differentangles, because you're right.
All of a sudden, this was anadmission that this is a
financial burden.
So you might remember that theconstant chorus and it still
hangs around now okay, issomething like this Don't worry
folks, the carbon tax is not afinancial punishment whatsoever.
In fact, you're going to getmore back than you pay in.
Just trust us.
Like they repeat that, moreback than you pay in all the
(11:49):
time.
Okay, so number one anyone witha shred of common sense knows
that that's silly, that thatdoesn't make sense because the
government does not generatewealth.
Okay, there is not some magicalfountain of actual gold backed
currency wealth generation underParliament Hill.
If you give them a $50 bill,they're not going to give you
(12:10):
back 80 bucks.
They can't do that.
The cost is always out thereand being borne by the people at
large in the larger economy.
So on the very surface, peopleare like that doesn't make sense
.
I can't give you money and getmore back like magically.
Number two the ParliamentaryBudget Office.
Again, I would encourageanybody.
It's really easy reading.
(12:34):
Honestly, it sounds complicated, but I promise you it's not.
It's very easy to understand.
They did a report and theyshowed that the average family
is going to be out net anywherebetween $400 and 900 something
dollars this year.
So, yeah, it's a financialpunishment.
And even if we were to takethat logic, if it's not a
financial punishment, how is itthat you're supposedly sticking
(12:58):
people off of oil and gasproducts, right?
I mean, if it's just magicallygoing to make us all wealthier,
why not make the carbon tax, Idon't know, a dollar per liter,
because we'll all be rich, right?
You see how that thinking isbizarre.
So all of a sudden, they had toadmit out loud with their faces
yeah, this costs people moneyand it's a problem.
(13:20):
And two, you nailed it.
They had to make this weirdclimb down specifically on
furnace oil, which just sohappens to have heavier
emissions than natural gas orpropane.
But they didn't give a carveout for natural gas and propane.
So the vast majority of us fromlike Ontario West use natural
(13:41):
gas to heat our homes.
There are folks, though I dowant to give a shout out to them
, especially there in BC wherehousing prices are so, so
expensive.
They do live in kind of an RVlifestyle.
For sure, they drive aroundquite a bit, they still.
They work jobs, right, all thatjazz, but they live in RVs.
And they also live in mobilehomes in trailer parks.
Those almost always use propanebut no carve out for them.
(14:05):
So this was just a giganticmess.
The fact that he like it waslike putting his foot in a
political bear trap, because nowhe's stuck both ways.
He's admitting that it's afinancial cost, of course, and
he's also giving an exemption toone of the heavier burning
fuels with no explanation.
The only thing you can come upwith is oh, we're going to give
(14:28):
money back on rebates for a heatpump.
Not everybody wants a heat pump.
Heat pumps can be prettyexpensive to install.
You have to maintain them allthe time.
That's usually a pretty seriouspersonal choice when it comes
to heating your home.
Also, I've read severalarticles where some home
insurance companies Also I'veread several articles where some
home insurance companies won'tinsure you.
If a heat pump is your onlysource of heat, you have to have
(14:49):
a more functional primarysource of heat.
Aaron Pete (14:57):
Or usually in most parts of Canada, they won't give
you insurance.
Yes, we have a community nearby, a First Nation community, that
tried to switch over to heatpumps and installed them all
outdoors and then realized thatduring extremely cold weather
events, when we hit like minus30 for a period, that they will
explode and they will fail onyou.
Kris Sims (15:12):
Oh my goodness, I didn't know that.
Aaron Pete (15:13):
All of those new units had those heat pumps fail,
with, I guess, water runningthrough them and stuff, and that
water froze and then, yeah,there was, so they had to
reorder new ones.
But going back to this rebatechallenge, it seems like this is
one of the harder things tokind of like wrap your head
around is how this rebate isworking.
One to your point.
(15:34):
You can't take somebody's money, manage it and have
administration costs of it andthen give back more money.
But the other thing that I feellike muddies my understanding
of this is when you're taxinggas and then you have delivery
truck drivers and the food ismoving around and it's hard to
calculate the impact of that aswell.
(15:55):
On top of this and I thinkmaybe I'm forgetting, but I
don't think the parliamentarybudget officer was able to
include those costs on how thatimpacts the cost of food overall
.
They can calculate for anindividual, but it's hard to
calculate the net effect of thistax.
Am I mistaken?
Kris Sims (16:13):
No, you're not mistaken at all.
And that's again.
You're really nailing it there,because quite often you'll hear
Prime Minister Trudeau againsay something silly like most
people get more back than theypay in.
Like I said, number one, that'sodd right, like that, just it
defies common sense and I don'tcare where you are on the
political spectrum, like thatshould be making you question
what the government says, that,um, but what?
(16:34):
What I think they were doing isif you open up the
parliamentary budget officer'sreport, he's got big grids there
, province by province, and itshows average family cost.
The top line is just directcost.
So you know, say you are Lauraand you're in Langley and you're
filling up your little HondaCivic, this cute little
(16:54):
hatchback of yours, and it costsyou around $850 extra to fill
it up.
In the carbon tax she'sprobably getting that back just
dollar for dollar, that oneexchange.
But what it wasn't factoring inwhen Trudeau says you get more
back than you pay in is what youjust said.
It is not factoring in how muchthe trucker is paying to fill
(17:17):
up his big rig full of diesel.
By the way, it's about $200extra every single time the
trucker's filling up, notcalculating how much the
maintenance person has to pay ontheir pickup truck, not
counting in how much the grocerystore has to pay to keep the
heat and lights and cooling andeverything going on natural gas,
which then you see how itlayers.
(17:38):
Oh, and farmers too.
A lot of people think thatfarmers are exempt from all fuel
taxes.
So if they fill up theirtractor with diesel, I think
it's still purple gas out therein BC I used to work at a gas
station and the marked gas waspurple.
Yeah, they get that for theirtractor, but farmers actually
have to pay the carbon tax ondrying their grain and heating
(17:59):
their barns.
So if you've got a chicken barnand you need to keep it at a
steady plus 30 degrees all yeararound, like good luck doing
that, I know, without naturalgas or propane I've seen some
bills for these farmers that arethousands of dollars in the
carbon tax.
Guess what that helps make foodcosts more.
(18:19):
So what the parliamentary budgetofficer did was put in kind of
a bottom line of net costs,including I think the term he
used was I'm trying toparaphrase it was like economic
factors or wider economicimplications, and that's what he
was talking about of, like thetrucker, the farmer, the grocery
store, the retail operator allthat crazy layering of carbon
(18:40):
tax costs when he came up withhis calculation.
So again, here in Alberta we'repretty oil and gas intensive.
It isn't just our home heatingthat we require natural gas, for
Most of our electricity.
The lights are being kept on inthis room right now because of
natural gas.
Out there in BC you guys havehydro and I know we have some
(19:00):
deals going back and forth basedon the cost where we can share
power.
But that carries carbon taximplications as well, and so
that is why Alberta families onaverage are getting hit the
hardest by the carbon tax, withrebates factored in.
Aaron Pete (19:16):
What would you say to a person?
I guess that is in thiscircumstance where we are seeing
more wildfires, we are seeingmore challenges on the planet.
Within my own region we have L.
We are seeing more challengeson the planet, like within my
own region.
We have Lytton that was burntto the ground, like we
understand that something needsto be done to prepare us Now,
like on the specific of Lytton,like there hasn't been houses
(19:36):
rebuilt from that.
So this whole idea that all ofthese things are going towards
addressing climate change issues, I have issues with because,
where I see them more direct, Idon't see the investments going
to where they would need to toaddress it.
But I think people are willingto support types of initiatives
like this in the hopes that theydo address this broader issue,
which is energy consumption,energy use, and they want to be
(19:59):
a part of the solution.
They don't want to be a part ofthe problem.
We have recycling programs,we're committed to doing good
things, but this has become apolitical issue and it's still
so hard for me to understandwhat the actual impact of
addressing climate change willbe through all of these new
taxes.
Again, if it's revenue neutral,hypothetically, then how is
this solving climate disastersand climate challenges and
(20:22):
wildfires and heat domes andice-cold winters?
How is it solving theseproblems?
What do you say to the personthat wants to address climate
change, wants to protect theirfamilies and future generations
and are being given this tax asa potential solution?
Kris Sims (20:37):
I love all of those questions and, to start off with
, I'm not a climate scientist,so I can't promise that the
solutions I'm about to offerwill work on these things.
However, I am a tax fighter andI do analyze data and numbers
all day.
I'm also a British Columbian.
(20:57):
I was in hope when Lytton burntdown.
It was awful.
Lytton was really special.
Where the two rivers meet, Imean, that's just a spiritual
place, and to know that it'sgone and that the homes still
haven't been rebuilt, it's myunderstanding that there's still
actually some investigationsongoing up in that region, if
you can believe it.
So, yeah, that was deeplyupsetting when it comes to this,
(21:22):
though upsetting when it comesto this, though, specifically
Canada and specifically thecarbon tax.
So this is going to sound harsh, but even if Canada didn't
exist God forbid, pretend weblinked out of existence it
wouldn't make a dent in globalemissions.
That's just the cold hard,mathematical fact.
(21:44):
In fact, you don't need tobelieve me if you don't want to.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeausaid exactly the same thing in
French on this really specialprogram a few years ago probably
2017, 2018, around there.
It was in Quebec and it was ona program called Tout le monde
en parle, and he said in Frenchbasically what I just said even
(22:07):
if we shut down everythingtomorrow so everybody stays in
their homes, stop eating, stopdriving, stop heating like you'd
stop, you'd not exist, right,it wouldn't make a dent in
global emissions, because we'reless than I think 1.2 or 1.3
percent, it varies, based on thecalculation.
So, even if you want to get upin the morning and dramatically
(22:29):
reduce global emissions, makingthe carbon tax $100 a liter in
Canada wouldn't move that needle.
What we could do, though, issell natural gas to a place like
India, and the reason why I useIndia is because they were part
of the Commonwealth for a longtime.
They're a democracy.
(22:49):
We have a lot of folks living,especially in British Columbia
whose ancestors come from there.
There's a lot of relatabilityto India, and India also has
asked to purchase our naturalgas, and the reason why we would
suggest this as an alternativeis because India is responsible
for a huge part of globalemissions.
(23:11):
Like.
Picture Canada being this much.
India is responsible for thismuch, and that's because they
have between two and 300 millionpeople.
Okay, like, close your eyes andpicture it like close to 10
times the amount of people.
It's a staggering amount ofpeople that burn wood and animal
dung every day.
(23:32):
I'm not even touching coal like.
Forget about the power plants,okay, just think about personal
cooking and home heating.
So and this is the Indiagovernment's numbers, okay, you
can look it up they burn thatevery single day wood and dried
animal dung.
So, number one, women andchildren need to gather that
every day.
Two, it is horrendous indoorair quality.
(23:55):
I can't imagine living in thatsort of a situation.
Three, it creates really heavyemissions, both particulate and
CO2 emissions.
So what they're actually tryingto do they're trying to change.
They're asking other countriesto sell them natural gas, which
would drastically reduce theirglobal emissions.
(24:16):
So we've got really goodenvironmental protection here,
really good labor laws.
It employs people from allwalks of life here in Canada the
oil and gas industry, andthey're asking to buy it.
So it just kind of seems like awin-win situation, whereas, no
matter what, even if you wantedto pay a sin tax, like I said,
of you know, $10 a liter extraon your carbon tax in Vancouver,
(24:39):
it's still not going to reduceglobal emissions.
Okay, and so that's why wewould encourage people to kind
of drop the carbon tax elementwhen you're thinking about
global emissions and try totackle the big end of the
arithmetic problem.
I will also point out that,generally speaking, okay, in
British Columbia and I use BC asan example, because, number one
(25:01):
, you're there.
Number two, I really miss it.
And number three, it was thefirst place to have a carbon tax
.
So we have a long, long datatrend.
If you take a look at the10-year-long amount of data that
we have for BC emissions,they're going up, not down.
So, outside of being like,forget about 2020, okay, even
(25:23):
outside of being locked in yourhomes and businesses being shut
down, obviously, there wasalmost nobody on the road
Outside of those years, it'sgone up and up and up.
I think it's gone up over 7%for the 10-year window that I
was just talking about, and evenduring the lockdowns, emissions
still managed to squeak up.
I was surprised to see that itdidn't drop off of a cliff, and
(25:47):
so this is what we're saying isthat people are backed into a
corner, and this is what Iwanted to raise too.
I hope I'm not taking too longto explain it, but there's so
many good people, like you justdescribed, okay, who think that
they're doing the right thing orthey want to do the right thing
and they're worried about theenvironment, they're worried
about emissions, but they don'thave an affordable, abundant
alternative energy that they canswitch to.
(26:09):
It's not like a paper orplastic grocery, grocery
shopping bag, or even sewingyour own from home, from like
recycled blue jeans or something, depending on how far you want
to go.
A lot of people don't have that.
Let's make a switch todifferent energy option,
otherwise they would have, whichis why you see this as an
inelastic demand in BC.
That's why you're seeing it.
Generally speaking, emissionskeep on going up, and this is
(26:33):
where it really gets me mad,because this is now just a
financial punishment.
So you've got working peoplebacked into a corner, especially
in places like British Columbia.
Often they have to commute longdistances.
Are you still near Chilliwack?
There in the Fraser Valley, yes, yeah, so you know there's tons
of people who drive into thecity like every day.
(26:53):
They have to commute on thehighway, and so I remember it
was one of the last things thathappened when I was in BC,
before I moved.
This lady called me.
She was in her 60s.
Her and her adult son wereliving together in a basement
(27:15):
suite in Chilliwack.
Their rent was $2,600 a monthin this basement suite back then
.
I think it's around the sameprice now, but back then gas was
two bucks a liter or a littlebit more.
She was crying because hertradesman son couldn't afford to
fill up his pickup truckbecause his job site was over in
Poco.
He had to drive there every dayfrom Chilliwack.
You know what kind of commutethat would be, and at more than
two bucks a liter.
And so she just kept askingwhat do I do?
(27:35):
What do I do?
This is where this is reallyfrustrating, because we're
getting all this financial painwithout the environmental gain.
So yeah, that's what I wouldsay is yeah, I feel it, and I
know that people really takethis seriously.
The problem is, is the carbontax in Canada is not the
solution?
Aaron Pete (27:52):
Pierre Polyev says axe the tax.
Is it as simple as that?
Kris Sims (27:56):
Yeah, it can be.
He can get this done beforelunch.
Another quick little thing,because you're in BC and I know
you love it the first.
You might be surprised I mightnot be telling you something you
don't know.
Actually you probably alreadyknow this, but the first
political party in Canada to runa campaign against the carbon
tax that even said ax the taxwas the British Columbia NDP.
(28:20):
That's right.
So back when Carol James, theformer finance minister, was
leader of the NDP, she calledGordon Campbell's idea to have a
revenue-neutral carbon taxlipstick on a pig.
I agree that was a really goodquote.
And then she ran an entireelection campaign on axing the
(28:42):
tax because she thought it wouldbe unfair to punish people for
heating their homes and drivingto work and eating food.
She was right then, and I can'tfor the life of me explain to
you why the provincial NewDemocrats in British Columbia
have lost sight of that.
In fact there's footage of JohnHorgan, before he became premier
(29:06):
, in the opposition benchesrailing against the carbon tax
in BC, and that was back when itwas about five cents a liter.
You guys are more than 30 centsa liter right now with your two
carbon taxes.
So my point of all this is ispoliticians can change their
minds, and the NDP reallyreversed course on the carbon
(29:26):
tax, unfortunately, and we wantthem to see them go back to
axing the tax.
So Pierre Polyev, he haspromised to ax the tax.
I think he has said on day onewe expect him to have it done
before lunchtime if he everbecomes prime minister.
Aaron Pete (29:42):
Fascinating.
Now we have to talk abouttaxing the ultra rich.
I'm interested to see if you'regoing to be able to convince me
that they don't deserve it,that they don't deserve this
punishment.
I have a firm belief thatpeople care less about poor
people, but they do really hatethe rich.
It offends them more.
Like when you start talkingabout Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk,
(30:05):
people just get like how darethey be that wealthy, we can't
look at their accomplishmentsand that we rely on Amazon or
that we love Teslas or any ofthose things.
It's just it offends us thatsomebody could be so wealthy and
have so much and we can have solittle at times.
So I'm curious as to what yourposition is on this new tax on
(30:25):
the ultra-rich and if you couldexplain it for people.
Kris Sims (30:27):
Yeah for sure.
So I wanted to differentiate.
There was a proposal that wasfloating around hard.
I mean, there were so manytrial balloons it blocked out
the sun, like people said it wasan eclipse, but like we know
that what it was.
So there was a proposal for awealth tax and that was to go
after like you just described,like the super-duper, ultra-rich
.
And even to that argument Iwould say okay, but you're
(30:51):
eventually going to run out ofGalen Weston's and Jimmy
Pattison's as yourboogeyman-slash-scapegoat, right
, because it seems so simple.
And hey, I don't think a wealthtax would affect anybody on
this chat right now.
But if we look at itpractically, it seems so simple,
right, find the guy with thetop hat and the monocle and the
(31:12):
bag with the money print on itand go take it right?
The problem is number one likeyou can't do that because that's
stealing.
Number two even as governmentone, you'll run out of those
people.
So there's only so many superduper, uber wealthy people.
Three they already pay a lot oftax, like a heck of a lot of
(31:33):
tax, in fact.
That's often why this is adirty little secret in the NHL.
That's often why we lose hockeyplayers to the States, I know,
because they pay way less incometax down there in the States
than they do up here, because wehave a pretty aggressive pay
scale when it comes to incometaxes in Canada, across the
country.
So basically, it doesn't work.
(31:55):
A wealth tax doesn't work.
And we can even look at France.
Okay, france tried a wealth tax.
So people who are that filthyrich, they're pretty smart and
they want to keep their money.
So they have a team of lawyersand accountants and, like tax
specialists who move their moneyaround the world.
Like way smarter than me, theyfigure out a way to keep that
(32:16):
money out of government's handsanyway.
Two, they'll just leave.
So that's what happened inFrance.
So all these super duperwealthy people said you know
what, this isn't really worth it, we're going to leave.
So much so that they had toreverse course.
The French government had tomake an announcement, tail
tucked between its legs.
You know what?
No more wealth tax, please comehome.
(32:37):
We're so sorry.
And apparently I can't rememberif it was Macron or who it was,
and I'm paraphrasing in Frenchwho it was.
And I'm paraphrasing in French.
He said we became Cuba, butwithout the sunshine.
So they tried that and itdidn't work.
So what they did do, though, isthey increased what's called
(32:57):
the capital gains tax.
So capital gain, if I'm alittle bit murky but say you've
got a lot of stocks andinvestments and you sell those
investments or stocks, you paytax on that, of course, even
though you're investing it withafter-tax money, by the way,
like you're taking your incomeafter it's been income-taxed and
sales-taxed and what's left,and you're investing it.
(33:17):
If you make money on it, guesswhat the government takes some
of that too.
It's kind of mind-numbing.
Only on the profits, thoughcorrect On the profits, though
correct On the profits, correct,correct.
And so what they did is theyincreased that percentage.
I forget to what.
Aaron Pete (33:30):
I think it's 50 to 66.6%.
Kris Sims (33:32):
Holy smokes, it's even higher than I thought.
I thought it was up to 50.
Yeah, so that's a lot.
Now, again, that may not affectpeople directly right now, but
here's how it will affect them.
Number one if you own asecondary property, say you have
a condo that's in a city, sayyou're living in like a
secondary city or the country,and you have a condo in a major
(33:53):
city that you know your kid usesfor university or you rent it
out and you're counting on it asyour nest egg.
That's a secondary property andyou pay capital gains tax on
that.
So this will mean that some ofthose properties, I think people
are going to hold off onselling them.
So that could become a problembecause that means that that
(34:14):
will slow down the supply ofhousing.
Number two this is actually nowaffecting doctors, so much so
that even anecdotally so I wasin Foothills Hospital in Calgary
recently with a friend of mineand two doctors, totally
unprompted, like saw my jacketand they said, yeah, I've got a
(34:34):
bunch of people I went to medschool with and they're all
thinking of moving to the Statesbecause of this capital gains
tax increase.
And that's because doctors, theway that their pay is
structured.
They're a private company,basically, and they have to pay
staff if they have an office andthe way it's structured they
were going to get nailed withhigher taxes because of this
move.
(34:54):
Now, I don't know, actually, ifthe federal government thought
this one through, because I suredon't think that they were
expecting doctors coming up andsaying you know what I'm out of
here.
And it wasn't just me hearingthis.
In Calgary this was raised sooften that a reporter asked a
minister in Trudeau's governmentabout this hey, what about all
(35:15):
these doctors saying you knowwhat?
I've had it, I'm leaving, Ialready pay a ton of money in
taxes and I'm going to headsouth?
The minister's response was soglib, said something to the
effect of oh, that's okay, we'lljust go hire doctors from other
countries, like as if there'ssome ready-made doctor store and
we can just go shopping at thedoctor store and that doctor
(35:36):
shortages are not like a globalproblem, especially for the west
, like.
So that makes me think thatthey didn't think this through.
So, by and large, wealth taxesare a little bit different from
capital gains taxes.
But the capital gains taxes,even if you don't think like you
know, you're not a wheelerdealer on the stock market or
whatever it will probably affectyou.
In the case that we're going tohave employers and people like
(36:00):
doctors, unfortunately takingthemselves and their money
elsewhere and keep in mind thatwe're not just losing then that
vital requirement of having adoctor in your town.
They're taking that wealth withthem.
So the income tax that they'realready paying, like today, that
the government is counting on,will then be gone.
That leaves a big hole,especially if you get a lot of
(36:24):
people who have a lot of money,who already pay a lot of income
tax and capital gains taxes,leaving.
Now we're getting into someserious deficit territory.
So this was not a smart move andI'll leave you one with this
which blew my mind.
So the amount that they'reincreasing it by like how much
they're going to collect in thisbig, you know let's balance the
(36:45):
budget on the backs of the rich.
One, they're never going tobalance the budget.
They have no plans whatsoeverto balance the budget.
Their deficit is more than $40billion.
Two, the Trudeau government isgoing to spend this tax increase
money.
In four days I have lunch meatin my fridge that is going to
(37:06):
last longer than how much moneythey're taking into this tax.
So it's pretty astonishing forthe amount of damage it's doing
versus the amount of money thatthey're going to be able to
spend for how many days.
It's a head scratcher.
I don't know why they did this.
Aaron Pete (37:20):
There's two pieces.
I should follow up on One.
I think it's after the first$200,000 or $250,000.
It goes up to the 66%.
It stays at the 50% below that.
Tim, feel free to fact check meon that.
Kris Sims (37:34):
It's a lot.
I know it's a lot yeah.
Aaron Pete (37:36):
And then two.
The other thing that I washearing Vashi Kaplos talk about
on her show was that doctorswere told and encouraged to use
the business structure that youjust described for the past 20
years as the mechanism tosupport them, and so government
changing course on this all of asudden, without any
consultation or discussion, isalso, I think, quite frustrating
(37:58):
to them, because they were toldand encouraged to use the
system that they use in order toplan for retirement.
And again it comes back to this.
I think people often they saythey love the poor and they want
to do things for the poor, butthey really just hate the rich,
because your doctor should befinancially comfortable, like we
don't want doctors to be justgetting by.
(38:21):
They provide an essentialservice in our society.
They help people get throughthings.
But I think the challenge and alot of different things are
coming to a head is I can't getmore than maybe 10 minutes with
my doctor, and there's a signthat I used to see in the
doctor's office that said oneproblem per meeting, and so I
(38:42):
think people are looking atdoctors right now and going I'm
not getting the best care fromyou to begin with, so maybe you
do deserve a punishment.
That would ideally encourageyou to act as a better actor in
this medical system, and I knowwe lack doctors and I know
they're stretched too thin, butso many things, it feels like,
are colliding on our healthcaresystem that are causing
challenges, and one of them isthis one issue per visit kind of
(39:05):
approach.
Kris Sims (39:06):
Yeah, it's a great question Are you getting good
value for money?
Right?
And I think, unfortunately,most of the things that the
government controls, includingthings like health care, the
answer is no.
Like these guys can't run apassport office, like they're
really bad at most things, andthat that's interesting, because
I had heard that whole thegovernment has encouraged us to
(39:28):
do this for a long time, like,do their structure this way?
And one of the doctors I wasspeaking with at the hospital
yeah, he said something like youcan't change the rules mid game
, Like this feels like it's abetrayal, and so I didn't quite.
I was trying to focus on myfriend, but I didn't quite know
exactly what he meant.
And then I went back andresearched it and you're
absolutely right that they wereencouraged to do it this way for
(39:50):
this long.
The same way, you know, a lotof Canadians have put all of
their nest egg into one basketin owning a home.
For folks who are able, whowere fortunate enough to be able
to own a home going back a fewyears, and now the government is
sniffing around home equity andmaybe we're going to try to
take wealth out of your homelike that.
(40:11):
That's been a verboten no-gozone since the 1970s like well
over a generation and nowthey're scared that the
government is going to changethe rules mid game.
Aaron Pete (40:21):
Very, very similar I'm gonna see how do you feel
about?
Feel about the Albertagovernment reneging on its
promise in regards to reducingtaxes.
Kris Sims (40:30):
Which one?
The income tax or putting thefuel tax back up?
Aaron Pete (40:34):
Whichever one you like.
Kris Sims (40:36):
So two things.
One, the income tax cut.
Now they campaigned on, if Ican recall correctly, tax cuts
for all Albertans.
I have not yet been able tofind and I've been going through
tape if they said when.
When are they going to reducethe base income tax rate from
10% down to 8%?
(40:57):
Because I'd really like to know.
So I'm trying to find that, butit was a big promise, like it
was one of those forefront, youknow window type promises during
the campaign where they woulddo this.
So for folks especially whomoved from British Columbia to
Alberta, you notice actuallythat your paycheck does go down
because the Alberta income taxat the lowest rate is higher
(41:18):
than BC's.
So as of right now, you pay 10%as the lowest base rate all the
way up to like $147,000 a yearor something.
So you're hitting a huge chunkof people there, like that is
nurses, that is police officers,plumbers, teachers, truck
drivers, like that's a big swathof human beings here in Alberta
(41:38):
, and they're taking 10%.
What they promised to do is toreduce the first $59,900 up to
$60,000 worth of earnings, downto eight.
Now that sounds a little wobbly, but essentially what it would
do, the government says, is saveyou around $760 each per year.
That's nothing to sneeze at,because if you're in a
(42:01):
two-person working family,you're now saving $1,500.
And now they're kicking the canon this.
They haven't said no, butthey're saying they're going to
wait till 2026 and they're goingto phase it in at 9% instead of
8%.
I will flag this, though.
I was in the budget lockup andthey're not accounting for it in
2026.
(42:21):
Like the way that their mathgoes, for their revenue intake
is staying at 10 percent fromwhat I could calculate, so we're
pretty concerned about this.
They made very many intimationsduring the election campaign
that this was going to happenrelatively quickly, but I'm
still trying to find out if areporter asked them when, and
(42:42):
then things will be kind of onlike Donkey Kong.
The other one is the gas tax, orthe fuel tax.
Now, to be fair, premier DanielSmith did get rid of it for an
entire calendar year.
Boom, 13 cents gone per literof gasoline and diesel.
We paid zero provincial fueltaxes here for more than a year.
It was awesome.
We had the lowest fuel taxes inall of Canada, lowest fuel
(43:04):
prices in all of Canada.
It was a really good thing.
And, yes, it was initiallyannounced as a formula based on
the price of a barrel of oil.
But when the premier reduced itall the way down to zero, she
said it was for affordabilityreasons, because we weren't at
the threshold, like it wouldn'thave automatically kicked in.
But she dropped it anywaybecause people were in so tough.
(43:25):
And so now I would argue thatpeople are still in really dire
financial situations, manypeople here in Alberta, and
that's why, again, we're tryingto appreciate what they already
did do.
To be fair, it was gone for ayear.
Yes, it was announced as part ofa formula with the price of a
barrel of oil fluctuates.
So when the price of a barrelof oil goes up really high,
(43:46):
they're going to take off thetax, but they examine it
quarterly.
But based on what Manitoba isdoing, for example, the NDP
premier there, wab Kanu, hascompletely gotten rid of his
fuel tax.
It's fully suspended.
They're saving 14 cents a liter.
So how is it that the UCPgovernment in Alberta is getting
beat out by the NDP governmentin Manitoba when it comes to
(44:08):
fuel taxes?
And again I can hear themyelling from Edmonton.
We do have a balanced budget,where Manitoba does have a big
deficit.
So again, we're trying to befair, but we really want them
working hard on this.
We want to see a reduction infuel taxes again here in Alberta
, because I get calls all thetime from people who are still
struggling with affordability.
Aaron Pete (44:28):
How did you feel about the video that Daniel
Smith made in regards to this?
Because kudos to her for atleast trying to explain herself
in a way that I often don't seeother politicians willing to
look into the camera.
Kris Sims (44:43):
So to be personal and kind of taking my CTF hat off.
So to be personal and kind oftaking my CTF hat off, I've
known the Premier professionallyfor 20-something years because
I was in radio for a long timeand she was in radio for a long
time and so we'd meet each otherat conferences and stuff and so
we're friendly.
I like her and a lot of peoplein Alberta like her.
She's a likable person.
You've probably seen the funnybets going back and forth
(45:05):
between her and Premier Eby.
There might be some sort of ahockey thing going on here.
Not sure They've got this betbetween themselves of wearing
jerseys of each other and allthat jazz.
So like she's fun to be aroundand she's pretty personable and
she's a good communicator.
So I thought it was smart forher to do a direct video
communication to people and itdid need an explanation to do a
(45:28):
direct video communication topeople and it did need an
explanation.
But again, I have to hold herfeet professionally to the fire
here because when she did fullyreduce it we weren't at more
than I think the threshold is$80 per barrel for West Texas
International.
We weren't there then.
It was lower then but she stillremoved it because people were
struggling with affordability,and so that is where I would
urge her.
(45:48):
Yes, premier, we know that youhad it gone for a year.
Yes, we know that it istechnically tied to a formula.
You did very good thingsbalancing the budget and keeping
spending reduced below the rateof inflation plus population
growth.
Those are all really goodthings.
But we would really like to seethis fuel tax come back down,
especially when the Albertataxpayer is giving hundreds of
(46:10):
millions of dollars to build theCalgary Flames a new NHL rink.
Why are taxpayers paying moneyinto a big mega sports complex
in Calgary where millionairesget to play a hockey game?
I love hockey Most Albertans do.
I know most British Columbiansdo too, but the NHL and the team
should pay for that themselves.
(46:30):
That should not be coming outof taxpayers' pockets.
And again, we don't care whatjersey you're wearing, if it's
blue or orange.
That should not be coming fromtaxpayers' pockets.
Also, we're still handing outmillions of dollars every year
in corporate welfare here inAlberta.
Millions of dollars every yearin corporate welfare here in
Alberta.
They're spending I forget howmany million right now, writing
up a plan as to how much a trainsystem would cost, like a
(47:00):
bullet train system acrossAlberta, like I don't know why
Every government does it.
I'm not picking on the UCP, butit seems that when a party
comes to power, give them a fewmonths and all of a sudden they
have that monorail episode fromthe Simpsons stuck in their head
.
They're just like, hey, let'sbuild a train, let's have a
study as to how much it's goingto cost to build a train.
Don't, no, don't, stop doingthat.
If a private company wants tobuild one, if there's a market
(47:21):
for it and a demand like fillyour boots, that sounds awesome.
I'd love to take the bullettrain to Banff, but we don't
think that average workers inMedicine Hat and Red Deer should
be putting money into somethingthat isn't really necessary.
So, all in all, like she's bangon with messaging.
She's a very good communicator,very friendly person, but we
still need to hold her toaccount when she makes promises,
(47:42):
and that includes reducingincome taxes, and that includes
providing affordability forAlbertans when needed, and so,
again, we would respectfullyurge her to take a look at that.
I'm betting that on July 1st,when the next quarterly update
happens, that we will see apretty dramatic reduction in
fuel taxes and maybe even a bitof a payback, a bit of a rebate,
(48:04):
because right now the price ofoil is pretty high and it's
stayed high for the last severalweeks.
Aaron Pete (48:09):
Can you give me your brief thoughts on Prime
Minister Justin Trudeau?
You've seen where he's at inthe polls.
I know that your organizationisn't one-sided for one
political organization or theother.
I'm just curious what are yourthoughts on Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau?
Kris Sims (48:25):
Pretty disastrous, to be really blunt.
And again you're right CanadianTaxpayers Federation we don't
care if it's a red jersey or ablue jersey, like, for example,
we gave former Liberal PrimeMinister Paul Martin an award
for slaying the deficit, likewith an actual ceremony and
everything, because he balancedthe budget, like we didn't care
(48:46):
that he was a liberal primeminister.
He did it Like his work asfinance minister was really
difficult and he managed toactually slay the deficit, which
was one of the reasons theTaxpayers Federation exists.
We started in 1990 opposing theGST and opposing big deficits,
and so then we saw leaders likeJohn Cretchen and Paul Martin
(49:08):
and John Manley really take thatbull by the horns and balance
the budget.
That was remarkable and goodand we have said so.
Trudeau is a completelydifferent kettle of fish.
I've been studying politics mywhole life.
He has doubled the debt.
When he went in it was morethan $600 billion.
It's now $1.2 trillion and hehas no plans to ever balance the
(49:33):
budget.
I think he doesn't quiteunderstand it because I'm just
guessing here someone who grewup never having to worry about
making rent or affording a carpayment or paying a bill he
doesn't seem to have a conceptof money and balancing it and
makes no apologies for it Toreally quickly.
To leave you with this we're$1.2 trillion in debt.
(49:55):
That is an enormous number.
If you started counting loonieslike Scrooge McDuck and you
started counting them up, itwould take you 30,000 years to
count to one trillion.
That is how I know my skin'scrawling.
That's how much debt we're inright now, with no plans to ever
balance it.
So yeah, really bad, likefailing grade fiscally from this
(50:19):
from this prime minister.
Aaron Pete (50:21):
Pierre Poliev.
He has his talking points right, but do you think he's going to
be able to deliver on a lot ofthe promises he's making?
Kris Sims (50:33):
We sure hope so.
So some of the main ones we'relooking for from him um, we've
spoken to him about this manytimes and again.
We don't force politicians tosign pledges or whatever, but we
do listen to their promises andthen we hold them accountable
afterwards, and some of thethings that he has promised are
things like scrapping the carbontax that sounds like it's going
to be right away.
Scrapping the gun confiscationso for legal, law-abiding
firearms owners, he said he'sgoing to reverse that.
(50:55):
He has said that he wants tostop funding the media with
taxpayers' money, so we'reexpecting him to do that.
So there's a few pretty majorpromises that we're expecting
him to keep.
How fast he's going to be ableto balance the budget, we're not
sure, but I'll give you thisand it gave me a bit of hope Our
(51:16):
federal director, great guyFranco Terrazano.
He went through the budget lineby line, and Trudeau could
balance his budget if he juststuck to 2021 levels of spending
.
So I know this was a huge,bloated budget back in 2021,
right, we're not talking about,like you know, austerity, you
(51:37):
know trying to recover from awar or something.
No, 2021 budget was huge.
If he simply scaled back tothat level of spending, we'd
have a balanced budget.
And so we're hoping that ifhe's elected prime minister and
that's a big if, because younever know what's going to
happen we're hoping he'll beable to balance the budget
really rapidly.
Aaron Pete (51:58):
Fascinating.
In 21-22, the CanadianTaxpayers Federation raised $5.2
million with the strength of55,653 donations.
Your donations aren'tcharitable, no, and you do not
accept foreign funding.
I'm just wondering if you'reable to talk a little bit more,
very briefly, about theorganization and why people
(52:21):
should support.
Kris Sims (52:22):
Oh, that means a lot to me.
So I was a radio producer and ahost for a long time and I
always liked the TaxpayersFederation for those reasons you
just described and because weare nonpartisan and we stand for
lower taxes, less waste andaccountable government.
Okay, those three things arepretty fundamental, and if you
have those three things, wethink you could live a better
(52:42):
life.
And so we do all sorts of stuff.
We give media interviews, we dolong-form podcasts like yours,
we do press conferences and wedo a big email reach.
So we have around 200 or sothousand supporters across
Canada.
Lots of folks there verygenerously donate.
The vast majority of themdonate around 100 bucks or less.
(53:04):
So these are retired policeofficers, they're small
businesses, they're farmersright, they're retirees who ran
shops their whole lives.
So we respond to our own emailsfrom our supporters every day,
and so I hear from them directlyall the time and we're really
grateful for them.
And so what they do is theykeep us going, they keep these
(53:26):
lights on, they paid for thissign, they paid for this jacket
so that I can talk to you, andso we rely wholly on donations.
We don't take foreign money and, to your point, we're not a
charity, we're a not-for-profit.
And because we're not a charitywe don't even give you a tax
receipt, because we don't wantto incur any cost to the public
(53:47):
purse.
So if you make us a donation,we really thank you, but you're
not going to be getting one ofthose big fat tax receipts from
it.
Aaron Pete (53:54):
Fascinating.
Chris, it's always a pleasureto sit down with you.
These issues are so complex,but I always appreciate that
you're able to break them downso we understand what's going to
impact us at the pump and givethose approximations, because
that's where people get lost inthe bureaucratic process and
you're passionate about theseissues.
You always bring it back to theindividuals who are directly
impacted the families puttingfood on the table, and I think
(54:17):
that's always where we need tobring our political discussions
back to.
We can get lost in grandioseideas of fixing the world and
solving all these problems, butit does impact the day-to-day
person and I think you're verygood at that.
So thank you, as always, forbeing willing to hop on.
Kris Sims (54:31):
Oh, thank you so much .
I'll leave you with thisanecdote You're filling up your
minivan it's $13 extra, just inthe carbon tax.
If you've got a light dutypickup truck, it's $20 extra per
fill up, just in the carbon tax.
And you do an excellent job onyour podcast, explaining things
in such a great way, and thankyou for covering them.
Aaron Pete (54:49):
It's my pleasure.
Go check it out.
Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
I highly recommend followingtheir work as they're helping
shine the light on a verycomplicated topic.
Thank you,
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.