To revisit something Mr. Ruimy said, he basically proved my point. He said that British Columbia's carbon tax collects over a billion dollars from taxpayers and gives back only $500 million in tax relief. The rest is all in business incentives, which means handouts to interest groups that are able to effectively lobby for that money. That doesn't make it “revenue neutral”, Mr. Chair, just to correct the terminology. “Revenue neutral” doesn't mean that a government spends everything it gets. It's the equivalent of Field of Dreams: “if you send it, we will spend it”.
What we're talking about here is a revenue-generating carbon tax that expands government at the expense of taxpayers, and disproportionately at the expense of low-income rural and remote taxpayers, who are more dependent on fossil fuels for their energy. What we've seen today is more evidence that the increases in those costs disproportionately fall on communities in the north, because they must heat homes in a colder climate and must transport the essentials of life over longer distances.
I put that on the record to correct earlier statements. Thank you.