Ottawa leaves small businesses to pay the heaviest price for its climate agenda via fpcomment
As we all know, carbon taxes are a difficult pill to swallow for many. Raising taxes on widely used products like fossil fuels will hit us hard in the pocketbook. It is little wonder then that the federal government took measures to try to soften the blow by offering rebates to consumers that are purported to be larger than the amount of carbon tax that the average family would pay in the first place.
So you can imagine the reaction when small firms who are struggling to deal with the tax and have no information on the promised sliver of a rebate for them saw a news conference announcing a big fat cheque for one of the largest companies in Canada. The government’s $12-million grant to Loblaws from the Low Carbon Economy Fund has deeply offended small-business owners from coast to coast.
So we looked into the Low Carbon Economy Fund. And while the fund is no longer receiving applications, it did specifically include small firms. In fact, the details said that the fund was available to small businesses with as few as one employee. But only upon further reading did we learn that “federal contributions will be no less than $500,000” and the government will contribute no more than 25 per cent of the cost of any eligible expenditures.
This reinforces the other reason why small firms have a right to be concerned about the promised rebate program to return a small portion of their carbon-tax revenue. Government grant programs almost never live up to their billing. Much of any grant scheme funds the battery of bureaucrats and consultants who administer or understand the application process. They often favour the large and politically well connected .
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