Canada’s carbon tax could come in either red or Green

Sufferers of colour blindness can be excused for a long, hard blink at a pair of proposals announced this week. Not only are they both ostensibly revenue-neutral carbon taxes designed to add a tangible cost to greenhouse gas emissions, but one is red and the other is Green.

While Liberal leader Stephane Dion made his announcement of the Liberal’s carbon tax plan, The Green Party unveiled its own version two days beforehand. Both, interestingly, are variants of the title “Green Shift” (Liberal: “The Green Shift,” Green: “Green Tax Shift”). (Given the Conservative offensive against the still-nascent plan, is it any wonder the Liberals were less inclined to include the term “tax”?

Now, for those of you with the ability to distinguish between red and green claims: can you tell the difference?

Red (1 MB PDF)

• Revenue-neutral
• $10 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions
• $15 billion in revenue
• Rural Canadians receive an annual “Green Rural Credit” of $150
• No increase on the price in fuel (in the first year)
• Lowering the lowest tax bracket’s taxation from 15 per cent to 13.5 per cent

Green

• Revenue-neutral
• $50 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions
• $40 billion in revenue
• Lower income Canadians receive “carbon tax rebates” modeled after GST rebates
• Fuel prices will increase
• Lowering the lowest tax brackets’ taxation from 15.5 per cent to 15 per cent (oddly, the Canadian Revenue Agency already posts the bracket’s rate at 15 per cent)