This is our principal preoccupation. As Conservatives, we believe in reducing the tax burden, but that never seems to happen. British Columbia was supposed to have been the example of where the government would offset higher carbon taxes by lowering income tax and business taxes. Now the government is winning and taxpayers are losing in that province.
In Ontario, not only is the government collecting vastly more through its cap-and-trade tax system than it's giving back in tax relief—in fact, it's not giving any tax relief—but the money is being spent on programs that disproportionately help privileged and wealthy insiders. If you're a working-class single mother in Ontario, your gasoline bills go up, but if you're a multimillionaire who can afford to buy an electric Tesla, then the provincial Liberal government has got just the rebate for you, a $15,000 rebate. It is definitely a wealth transfer from working-class people to the super-wealthy. That doesn't even take into consideration all the corporate welfare programs that are typically funded under the guise of green handouts to business, all of which also take from the working class and give to the privileged few.
As you just pointed out through your answer, there isn't a single jurisdiction in all of Canada that has returned the revenues from the carbon tax to income taxpayers and business taxpayers.
Mr. Kenney, do you worry about the impact that these taxes will have on low-income families?