When I pull up to the pumps in my small hometown on the coast of British Columbia, Canada, I pay more for a tank of gas than in California, my new home. Why? Because regardless of where gas prices hover at the moment, the B.C. government tops off every gallon with a 25-cent tax.
Complaining about gas prices is almost as ubiquitous as small talk about the weather, so it seems counterintuitive for politicians to hike costs up even further. Yet somehow the province’s Liberal party managed not only to do just that, but also to win an election centered on the issue in 2009. They did it by designing the tax in a way that benefits the province’s robust middle class.
My father, a small business owner on Vancouver Island, can’t avoid driving because he needs to travel to the properties that he appraises for work. But his priorities have shifted. “The carbon tax makes up a significant enough percent of the increasing price of fuel that it has definitely tipped the scale on how much I drive,” he says.
So when he had to replace his truck last year, he bought a more fuel-efficient model, and he bundles his errands, rather than taking a separate trip for each. “It a... Read more
