• Academic study projects 5.5% drop in "real" incomes or $2,700 by 2010
• Kyoto Protocol based on tenuous assumptions, Ottawa not telling full story
• Twenty-five percent (25%) of emissions reduction target still not accounted for
• CTF reiterates call for national referendum on Kyoto Protocol

Kyoto Protocol Report (433 KB)

Executive Summary

OTTAWA: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) today released findings from a study it commissioned entitled Counting the Costs: The Effects of the Federal Kyoto Strategy on Canadian Households at a national news conference this morning in Ottawa. The study, authored by noted academic Dr. Ross McKitrick from the University of Guelph, predicts a 5.5% drop in "real" household incomes - $2,700 for the average family - starting in 2010.

"The price increases and wage reductions needed to bring energy consumption down to Kyoto levels will reduce annual real net household income by about $2,700 annually. In light of the fact that Kyoto yields no economic or environmental benefits this is obviously a bad deal for Canadian households and should be rejected," concludes professor McKitrick.

"The federal government continues to pass off fancy - but vague - PowerPoint slides as its Kyoto plan. Meanwhile, Canadians have been kept in the dark as to the real costs," stated CTF federal director Walter Robinson. "Under the Kyoto protocol, Canada has to show a concrete plan by 2005. It must meet its emissions target over the entire 2008 to 2012 period. Yet the feds still cannot account for 60 megatonnes of emissions reductions - a full 25% - of their 240 megatonne requirement. This is hardly the open, no surprises process promised by Ottawa just three weeks ago."

Other findings from Counting the Costs:

• Ottawa hasn't conducted independent reviews of the science or cost estimates behind Kyoto;
• Preferences for energy consumption are stable - changing consumption patterns could require natural gas price hikes of 90% and gasoline price hikes as high as 50%;
• Assumptions of a smoothly-functioning international emissions credit market are flawed; and
• A drop in real wages of 5.8% along with a 5.5% drop in real net incomes by 2010.

"The polling is very clear: the more people learn about Kyoto the less they like it. Its support plummets like lemmings off a cliff," concluded Robinson. "The Prime Minister should put the Kyoto ratification decision to Canadians directly in a referendum as this issue is of equal magnitude - if not greater - to the Free Trade Agreement or the Charlottetown Accord. He should choose the path of democracy as opposed to his present legacy of demagoguery on this file."