'He's in our hearts': Family and friends still seek answers one year after Nathan Wise’s disappearance
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Rebates on carbon taxes haven't helped Canadians warm to them, a new survey suggests.
Results published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change say that not only did rebates fail to make much difference to public opinion, Canadians don't understand them very well.
And those convinced they were paying more in carbon taxes than they received remained just as convinced even when they were shown the facts.
"Partisanship had a big impact -- not just on whether people were supportive of the idea of carbon pricing, but on their perception of the facts," said co-author Kathryn Harrison of the University of British Columbia.
Harrison said she and her colleagues wanted to study whether carbon rebates -- returning money to taxpayers to offset or even exceed the amount they'd paid in carbon taxes -- would make the policy more palatable.
"Canada was one of the first two countries to do that," Harrison said. "There was an opportunity to systematically check what was the impact of the policy."
The team surveyed Canadians between early 2019 and March 2020. They looked at Saskatchewan and Ontario, whose residents get the federal rebate; Quebec, which uses a cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon; British Columbia, which has a provincial carbon tax without rebates; and Alberta, which ended up on the federal program halfway through the study when it cancelled its provincial levy.
Respondents were queried after the rebate plan was announced, after it was implemented, after the first rebates were issued, after the 2019 federal election and a year after the initial announcement. The sample size was 3,313 at the start and 899 by the end of the fifth survey.
"There was no magic," said Harrison.
The survey found, at most, minor changes in support for carbon pricing over time in all five provinces. British Columbia, which doesn't offer rebates, showed the biggest increase at about 10 percentage points. No province showed a decrease.
There were wide gaps in support between self-identified Liberal and Conservative respondents.
But the researchers found nearly half the Ontario respondents and about a quarter of those in Saskatchewan didn't even know they got a rebate. Those who did consistently underestimated the amount by an average of 40 per cent in Ontario and 32 per cent in Saskatchewan.
When researchers showed the respondents the true value of their rebate, a simple calculation that requires no tax data, the results again split over political affiliation.
"After learning how much they were getting back, Conservative voters were more likely to report they were net losers, that they were paying more in taxes than they were getting back," Harrison said.
"They must have increased their estimate of how much they were paying up front," she said. "(They) seem to have adjusted their beliefs in order to support their position of opposition to the federal carbon tax."
When the researchers conducted similar surveys in Switzerland, the other country to have implemented a rebate system, Harrison said the results were similar.
The results are discouraging for those who think of the public as composed of rational actors coolly evaluating information and acting on their best interests, Harrison said.
"Giving people back money doesn't automatically shift the politics of it.
"Canadians are getting their signals on this type of policy from people they trust, whether it's interest groups or politicians. In many cases, they are basing those positions on inaccurate information."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 25, 2022.
It’s been a year since Nathan Wise went missing and his family is no closer to finding out what happened to him.
Dozens of Ontarians are expressing frustration in the province’s health-care system after their family doctors either dropped them as patients or threatened to after they sought urgent care elsewhere.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
Amazon's paid subscription service provides free delivery for online shopping across Canada except for remote locations, the company said in an email. While customers in Iqaluit qualify for the offer, all other communities in Nunavut are excluded.
The fire burning near Fort McMurray grew from 25 hectares to 5,500 hectares over the weekend.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began a Cabinet shakeup on Sunday, proposing the replacement of Sergei Shoigu as defence minister as he begins his fifth term in office.
Police are searching for a male suspect after a man was “slashed in neck” on Sunday morning in downtown Toronto and died.
There were some scary moments for several people on a northern Ontario highway caught on video Thursday after a chain reaction following a truck fire.
Health Canada announced various product recalls this week, including electric adapters, armchairs, cannabis edibles and vehicle components.
English, history, entertainment, math and geography: high school trivia teams could be quizzed on any of it when they compete at the Reach for the Top Nationals in Ottawa in June.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.
A small Ajax dessert shop that recently received a glowing review from celebrity food critic Keith Lee is being forced to move after a zoning complaint was made following the social media influencer’s visit last month.
The Canada Science and Technology Museum is inviting visitors to explore their poop. A new exhibition opens at the Ottawa museum on Friday called, 'Oh Crap! Rethinking human waste.'
The Regina Police Service says it is the first in Saskatchewan and possibly Canada to implement new technology in its detention facility that will offer real-time monitoring of detainees’ vital health metrics.
Just as she had feared, a restaurant owner from eastern Quebec who visited Montreal had her SUV stolen, but says it was all thanks to the kindness of strangers on the internet — not the police — that she got it back.