Liberals inadvertently reveal more lies about the Green Shift

By now I am sure you have all read the latest news that Dion is going to try to modify his carbon tax proposal after his much ballyhooed summer tour trying to sell this bad piece of policy to Canadians failed miserably. While the story about how the Liberal sales job of the Green Shift has been a complete failure is damning enough in itself; hidden away in the latest Liberal rhetoric is something even more damning as it reveals just how Dion and the Liberals have been lying about the carbon tax from day 1.

Here is what Dion is now proposing: Dion will announce that part of the $1 billion contingency fund in his plan, designed for tax relief to address the unavoidable costs associated with the carbon tax, will be set aside for truckers, farmers and fishermen. "There's $1-billion wiggle room," said Montreal MP Marlene Jennings. "We've never said that the plan, in terms of the spending side, is complete, because it's not. There is money that we're setting aside in order to be able to assist sectors that are going to be particularly hard-hit."

A 1 billion dollar contingency fund?

Now how exactly can a plan "that every dollar that is raised from carbon pollution will be returned to Canadians in tax" cuts." and a plan where "This shift will be done in a revenue neutral way –putting it in law that every dollar that is raised from carbon pollution will be returned to Canadians in tax cuts." possibly have a contingency fund if every penny collected will be going back to Canadian taxpayers?

It absolutely cannot be done, that is unless of course someone has been lying to Canadians since day 1.

A couple of other pertinent questions:

Just how did Dion and the Liberals plan to slip a billion dollar fund made up of money that was promised to go back to the taxpayer past the Auditor General, who the Liberal have promised would oversee the revenue neutrality of the carbon tax?

If the Green Shift was going over well with Canadians at this time, does anyone honestly believe that the money would go back to the taxpayers?

And perhaps the most important question of all: What did the Liberals really plan to do with this fund?

Update: Buried in Dion's carbon tax is a note on the creation of a special fund. "Contingency offset. We will set aside $1 billion over four years ($100 million in the first year growing to $400 million in the fourth year) which will be reserved for tax cuts designed to off-set the impact of the carbon tax on groups such as not-for-profit organizations and charities. This contingency offset will also be used to design tax relief to address unanticipated and unavoidable costs associated with the new price on carbon for the most vulnerable in society."

So are farmers and fisherman non profit organizations, charities, or part of the most vulnerable of our society? I am sure they would like to know and eagerly await an answer from Dion.

By the way, when did a subsidy become a tax cut?


ht Steve Jenke and the comments at Unambiguous.