Ontario gas stations face $10k-a-day fines if they don't show Cons' anti-tax ads - Polidicks

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gas-station-fine-carbon-tax-stickers-1.5096259 Buried in Ontario's budget bill are fines of up to $10,000 per day for gas station operators who don't display government-mandated stickers about the price of the carbon tax. The budget contains a new piece of legislation called the Federal Carbon Tax Transparency Act that would require gas stations to display the sticker on each pump. The sticker shows the federal carbon tax adding 4.4 cents per litre to the price of gas now, rising to 11 cents a litre in 2022. The legislation lets the government send inspectors to see if gas stations are properly displaying the stickers and sets out penalties for non-compliance. Individuals could be fined up to $500 each day, or up to $1,000 a day for subsequent offences. Corporations could be fined up to $5,000 a day, or up to $10,000 a day for subsequent offences. Obstructing an inspector would carry a fine of at least $500 and up to $10,000. "This is a new low, even for (Premier) Doug Ford," NDP energy critic Peter Tabuns said in a statement. "It's bad enough that he's wasting public money on partisan promotion, but now he's threatening private business owners with massive fines for failing to post [Progressive] Conservative Party advertisement." Similar critiques came from federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, who denounced the fines as "ridiculous." "Not only is this a violation of freedom of speech, it will cost small business owners across the province who don't want to take part in this government propaganda campaign," McKenna said in a statement. "This should be denounced by all political parties as a new low for our political discourse." Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner said Ford is wasting tax dollars and abusing legal tools to bolster his anti-carbon tax campaign. "This has nothing to do with transparency and everything to do with helping his federal cousins win the election," Schreiner said in a statement. Jfc these parasites need to go.

Gas stations are already required to post a cost-breakdown of gas prices, including all taxes, at every pump, and have been for years.

But they weren't supposed to be propaganda against a federal tax.

So do you just ignore the context of this specific piece of propaganda or...

Frankly I agree with them doing it. The carbon tax as implemented is going to lead to a massive increase in day-to-day expenses over the next 5 years, and I think people need to be aware of that. The Federal Government has released their own propaganda in favour of the tax here too, constantly trying to claim that people will get back more than they spend, which seems to me to be a nigh impossible thing to do and makes the imposition of the tax redundant and pointless if it is the case.

God I wish the oil industry would just fucking collapse already

It's so impossible that it's exactly what happens when the carbon tax was implemented in Australia

I think everyone needs to be aware that in 50 years, none of this will matter and most of the things you love or like, or care about will be lost to history and you and I will be facing a existential crisis with the rest of huamnity but god fucking fobid gas costs more for a few days. Gas is 1.76$ here. Get used to it and stop whining. It should be more, and I drive a car that needs premium so it's not like this isn't hurting me.

So basically "it's fine because it's convenient to my political beliefs despite the larger ramifications" and whataboutism, do I understand you correctly? You can't see more than 5 feet in front of you when it comes to political matters.

How? I actually want to know how you pay back more to people than what you collect without taking revenues from another source, and if the studies included rising costs of goods due to increased transportation costs.

It won't in our lifetimes. Currently petrol and natural gas is approaching its zenith with fracking technology spreading from the U.S. to other countries previously thought to have little value in domestic oil. Oil will never die anyways due to too many useful materials and plastics coming from it not to mention its amazing energy density for being a non-fissile or fertile energy source. The problem has never been lack of oil but a lack of technologies to extract it and those technologies have just come onto the world stage.

People deserve to be adequately informed about the ramifications this tax is going to have on their cost of living. Especially because this tax, like most others, will disproportionately affect the poorest classes of society who already struggle to make ends meet, the very people the federal government claims to care about protecting the most.

Literally in the article: But critics note that the stickers don't mention carbon tax rebates. The carbon tax is expected cost to a typical household $258 this year and $648 by 2022. Residents of provinces with the tax will be getting rebates on their income tax returns that start at $128 annually and increase for people with spouses or dependents at home. The federal government says a family of four in Ontario would get $307 this year. Why should they only be adequately informed about the direct cost on fuel, and none of the other effects - such as the aforementioned rebate, or the projected improvement to the environment? Everything a government does will have lots of changes, why is this one so special that we need to hammer it into people's faces, but only one misleading point?

Cool. You CAN drive somewhere to get cheaper gas. I CAN'T. I'm not able to go to Alberta to get cheaper gas, not in an affordable manner. I'm not trying to say I enjoy how much gas costs because I've been having an existential crisis trying to afford just being alive at this point, so I get it, but at the same time we have a problem. We need to start throttling back gas usage across the board. it's one of the few things a consumer can do to stop, or slow, climate change. Affect their own personal driving habits. Gas is 1.76$ this morning when I was driving into work. Premium is more expensive than that. Our country, and the companies in our country don't pay reasonable wages in my experience, so this is inevitable for almost all of us. The reason it's applied to gas and not new vehicles is simple. Only a gas tax hits everyone. A "New Car" carbon tax would literally never effect me, or a variety of other people who will never, ever, EVER, own "new cars".

They are, through federal propaganda airing on the radio and TV.

uh huh, how does that address the obvious one-sided nature of this not-propaganda? How is "there's a carbon tax" propaganda?

This is not a good-faith attempt to inform citizens of taxes. This is an attempt to manipulate people through propaganda, using the aforementioned information as a thin excuse. This sign is obviously not intended to simply inform people of their tax obligations. It is designed to cause fear. https://reel.geel.tf/606z81nbeqxqex215suh.png There is no reason to have this graph with a giant red arrow if your goal is simply to inform people of what their tax burden is. That is propaganda.

Gas taxes hurt the poor most of all. Shouldnt be used.

Not sure but I'm guessing they aren't giving you an itemized breakdown of each tax, and requiring pumps to all have a big sticker saying "This is how much it costs you" seems like a very biased way to explain the taxes especially since sales and infrastructure taxes usually make up the bulk of the gas tax

Because it's promotional material put out by the government intended to influence people to support their policies as opposed to the policies of another government with different views than them? Agreeable propaganda is still propaganda. The ads are more than "There's a rebate," the ads deliberately try to paint the rebate and the tax as a whole in a positive light, which is still propaganda.

I'm poor. This gas tax effects me. I'd rather we have a solution to do something about climate change even if it hurts me, than do nothing. I understand your perspective as you have elaborated on it, pretty well. And frankly, if we all did as you want, and as you're going to do, this isn't even a question of "if" it's a question of "When should we just stop pretending we ever cared?"

gas taxes are so stupidly politicized, especially here in the states where we have an inbreed hatred of any taxes, and have no alternative methods of transport for 99% of the country

This is a pretty poor understanding of how cars and the fees around them work. I used to sell car insurance, and do vehicle transfers. If what you propose became the law, everyone, and I do mean fucking everyone, will do their best to loophole out of that at the first chance. And there will be loopholes. There always are.

That's actually exactly what they do. Every pump has an itemized breakdown of the taxes included in the cost of gasoline, such as provincial roads taxes, federal excise taxes, and sales taxes.

highways and cars hurt the poor, they pollute, they cost enormous amounts of money, and the poor can barely even afford to use them as opposed to mass transit systems that are clean, cheaper, and everyone can afford.

But it'd be paid by people well off enough to buy a new car. Even the most financially stable person I know just sold their rustbucket to a scrap yard and bought a 1-2 decade old sedan.

How would you loophole out of a federally imposed tax required by dealerships to be charged on all new car sales, or newly-registered-in-Canada vehicles, that is based on the listed fuel economy of the vehicle and estimated average fuel usage over a period of 15-20 years? It's one place where I can't see where the loopholes arise, so long as the law is written such that you can't get around it by importing a vehicle.

I don't know. I'm not the guy who will come up with loopholes. I just worked in the job where I saw, and knew hundreds of regulations, and saw tons of ways around them by "clever" customers. I don't oppose gas taxes. They effect the poor, sure, but they also effect the rich, and large corporations. TransX can't stop running trucks just because Gas is expensive, they have to keep running them or find better routes, or do something to minimize the cost and thus their impact on the environment. The "ECONOMY" isn't the only thing in the world, though at the rate we're going, you'd forget Earth was home to people, and not just a entity we call the "ECONOMY".

Keep the stickers. Just put other stickers around it showing "also you get tax rebates for it" and "without the carbon tax, here's what will happen to CO2 levels" and such. Hey, the law only says you have to show the entire sticker, nothing about keeping you from putting up other stickers.

I don't see how this should be mandated, especially at a penalty of up to $10,000 a day. This is a really hamfisted attempt to force businesses to push propaganda. That's the problem, this sets a bad precedent if government can force private citizens / private enterprise to favourably portray their arguments.