The Hook

Caution! Inflation Ahead

"Every penny collected through the price on carbon will be given back to Canadians through personal income and business tax cuts, as well as tax credits. This revenue neutrality will be written into law, and verified by the Auditor General.

Higher energy costs will be off-set by tax cuts. We will dramatically reduce other taxes, for individuals and for businesses. We will make sure that this dramatic tax shift is revenue neutral."

The above is from the federal Liberal's web site. This tax is virtually guaranteed to increase inflation. The price of everything would go up. Who would ultimately pay the lions' share? The middle class, that's who. The poorest sector of society would not qualify for tax reductions because they're below the line but they'd have to pay more for anything that moves or is moved, as well as heat. Is this the right time for an increasingly complicated tax code and added expenses?

Wording of the question.

“Some people are saying that Canada should follow the lead of European countries that have cut income taxes and increased taxes on pollution. In these countries, people and companies that pollute more, pay more tax. Those who pollute less, pay less tax. Have you heard of this approach before?”

Notice that in the wording of this question, the first thing mentioned is a cut in income taxes. Isn't that the real purpose of the "green shift", to cut personal income taxes?

Big Four Oil Company

One of Canada's biggest exports and largest polluter is the oil industry. Is the world price of oil/natural gas going up because of the Dion carbon tax? Will Big Four Oil cut production? As if!!!!

This is an excellent way to squeeze some blood out of the big four oil companies at zero cost to UNOWHO.

transportation fuel for ordinary workers

The vast majority of the ordinary can't afford either a fuel price increase, nor a burdensome/cumbersome series of too late tax "credits". -- Add this to increasing prospects of "home-losses", not to mention the hiring biases against seniors, especially the partially disabled, and the perfectly competent analytical [women, esp.] who were not born with "multitasker" brains. -- The multitude of systemic biases are amazing; only the very enlightened among the "priviledged" have even a modicum of concern for the majority who aren't.

realisticman

Sounds like you're not a big fan of federal carbon taxes, how does that square with your support of provincial carbon taxes? Or are you against provincial carbon but not federal carbon? Are you able to tell which CO2 emission is provincial and which is federal?

Or is it all politics all the time?

bc carbon tax - another campbell payoff

Once again the BC carbon tax is little more than yet another way for Gordo and his cronies to filter voters money to Campbell's big campaign donators in exchange for the usual considerations. Almost 100% of the tax is paid by UNOWHO, 65% of the benefits go to humongous bank and other Campbell gang members as income tax cuts.

but carbon taxes aren't selling

People are right to be suspicious that a carbon tax will cost them something. It will. But I don't think people understand why.

When some politician says its not a tax grab, it doesn't sound right, because instinctively, everyone knows its going to cost something, somewhere. A lot of people are making the instant assumption that the politicians promoting these taxes are lying, and politicians seeking to capitalize on this public resistance are telling them they are right.

They're wrong.

An independent academic, Mark Jaccard, has studied the BC carbon tax and he says poorer people actually come out ahead on the tax front with it, and I believe him. Study his book: "Sustainable Fossil Fuels". Or google his name in reference to carbon taxes and read what commentators are saying about him.

How can a carbon tax be revenue neutral but still cost Joe Threepack (the markets are really tanking, maybe its Joe Twopack by tomorrow) something?

A revenue neutral carbon tax will raise the price of all use of fuels that involve emitting carbon to the atmosphere, and even if Joe takes his savings from the lower taxes and fees and incentives and uses them to fill up his gas tank, its revenue neutral on his taxation front alright but the percentage of his income going into paying for energy has just gone up, because the price of the fuels he normally uses has gone up. Going back to Jaccard's work, he says the carbon emissions can be removed, over the next few decades in an orderly manner, from what we are doing as a civilization, and the present energy cost that makes up about 6% of a typical family budget moves to 8%. Its a cost.

Joe knows its going to cost him more, the politician is saying its revenue neutral, Joe doesn't have time to figure it out precisely but the result is Joe is pissed off ready to pull the trigger at the election. No matter what the poll the Tyee is publishing up there says about how voters want to pay a carbon tax, it isn't selling out there on the hustings, perhaps because no one trusts actual politicians, except when one shouts at you that you are right. So Joe knows its going to cost him more no matter what anyone says, and so far, its been politicians opposed to the politicians who want to put the carbon taxes in who are shouting at him that he is right, and he is being swayed.

What the tax is supposed to do is by starting at a tiny level and rising slowly and steadily over the years, is convince everyone there is no point in the long run to be making any further investments that do not include reducing the amount of carbon emissions because no matter what the international oil price does, go up or down, the carbon tax will steadily jack up what people pay until they find some other way to accomplish what they want to do that doesn't involve emitting carbon.

Its an emergency. We've got to stop emitting carbon. Its going to cost, but we're going to do it, and the sooner we start the less the total bill will be. For instance, 50% of US electricity is coal fired. You can get 90% of the carbon out of that for 3 cents a kwh more, according to Jaccard, and his figures are based on years of research by the IPCC. That's a 60% increase on the wholesale cost, a tremendous amount of money when you think about the entire electrical grid of the US. But the way to look at it is its 3 cents a kwhr retail at your meter, or move from 6% to 8% of your budget for energy. Phased in over a period of years, giving you time to adjust. This is the ballpark cost for being able to look your great grandchildren in the eye and say you went along with it because it made sense to leave them something.

We've got to start doing something about global warming, and everyone, deep down, is starting to realize it. Except for a few diehards of course. Take a look at the Joint Science Academies statement handed to every head of state at this year's G8. Its the most reputable scientific organization in every G8 country signing off as a group, pleading with the governments of the world to implement policy now to stabilize the composition of the atmosphere. We're so far past arguing about so called junk science, or some supposed scientific dispute about what is happening, anyway, if you're one of those who doesn't see why emissions need to be reduced, vote for all the clowns who say no carbon tax and one day we'll hit you with one anyway, because everyone is going to be on one side on this one day, like we are on the financial crisis now. No one wants Canada's financial system to slip into an abyss like what happened after 1929, and no one wants to destroy the life support capacity of the Earth. We'll all realize it one day.

The scientists studying the situation are scared at what they are finding out. I've followed them since I met a number of them in 1988. The best of them put out a call to everyone who could hear him this year: its now or never, we've got to make a difference now. I had something else to do, but I started putting in my two bits worth again. How about you? Can we ask you to pay 3 cents a liter extra on gas? Can we ask you to lift one finger now, then maybe move to another finger in a while, maybe we'll find that working together on something meaningful will feel good.....

Politicians who talk about implementing carbon taxes are running into trouble with voters. When you hear opponents say they've got a better plan, cap and trade, its tweedledee or tweedledum. The "ordinary Canadian" is going to see energy cost go up in association with any plan to remove carbon emissions from the economy. There is no way to do it just by hitting "the big polluters", and Layton and James know it. Either method can work, or both together. Economists prefer carbon taxes. Cap and trade schemes can be gamed, it can go something like the deregulation of electricity in California, and the next thing you know someone has cornered the market on emissions rights, at least that's what some prof studying the situation says who makes sense to me. You can do it that way but you've got to be prepared to monitor and start over. A carbon tax on the other hand is very easy to understand. The way to cheat on it is to emit less carbon. The government wants you to cheat on it this way. That's why they tax you at the pump and hand over checks to you, albeit on a tiny scale as it starts up. The check is supposed to go into something, anything, to reduce your own emissions. Buy some better lightbulbs. Get a bike. Save it for the next better gas mileage car. Over time, you'll find that if you invest and reduce, you can do the same things with less emissions, the checks arrive that are the same size, and you'll feel better than the bus sized RV drivers towing Hummers you see beached outside the gas stations, unable to drive three feet to get a loaf of bread until they order up another $trillion bailout from Bernanke.

why politicians call for cap and trade

Dion got my attention when he waded into the Calgary Stampede and told them his "green shift" carbon tax plan was going to be good for them. It was the same with the provincial guy, Campbell. He put a carbon tax in, that the NDP supported all the way until they found out there were votes in it if they opposed, and he went out to speak in public about it saying "everything we love about British Columbia, we're going to lose" if we don't do something about climate change.

I don't care what anyone says about any other thing these two have done, I'm with them on this and I admire their political courage. Why? They're trying to implement what economists say is the best policy, no matter what the political cost is. People who dump on them can at least show some respect on this point.

I was studying the US situation and it seems clear that a lot of politicians believe that cap and trade is going to be an easier sell. It seems politicians have an easier time selling people on the idea it won't cost them as much. Its preposterous, study the literature yourself. But you'll never hear they put in a tax on gas aimed at reducing your use of it if there's a cap and trade system. All you'll hear is that the market has bid up the cost of a ton of carbon to $X amount of dollars, and the price at the pump will go up, but no one will be able to say it was a carbon tax that did it. Someone might say the cap and trade system did it to you, but by then it will have been operating for a while and they're hoping you'll go along with it, especially if a rising sea just flooded half of Florida, or the first hurricane hits Vancouver killing thousands.

So don't drag out the links to the politicians who advocate cap and trade as proof that the ones who are selling carbon taxes are off their heads. Get some economists. Emissions are an externality to this economic system, i.e. there is no account taken of them, and economists could care less about them, except, if they're going to kill the planet and it looks that way, so they have a simple solution to any externality that they finally make up their minds has to go: tax it.

Cap and trade worked for acid rain. It was big polluters in that case emitting sulphur from burning coal that were the big problem. Negotiations achieved a schedule to reduce the emissions every year, called the cap, and the big polluters were able to buy the right to emit from each other if they didn't want to meet their part of the target, which gave them choice, which they liked, and which directed the investment to the place where it would have the biggest bang, or the most effect at reduction. You don't hear about acid rain killed massive forest loss any more. I've seen photos from space of the inside of an active volcano, the former worst area of North America for sulphur emissions, and the entire land mass of China. China looks like the cone of the volcano only its the whole country. Eastern North America where they generate coal fired electricity doesn't look that bad at all in comparison.

I got a federal Envelope and

I got a federal Envelope and letter a couple of days ago telling me I don't qualify for a GST rebate.I know I don't qualify for such a rebate.

It had an insert, a letter from Gordo telling me all about the BC Climate Action Tax credit."Every penny collected is being returned directly to taxpayers through tax reduction and credits for low income British columbians". He went on for a couple of paragraphs telling me how the great tax reductions have helped us all. The big kicker was that some folks were getting a Low Income Climate action Tax credit of 100 per adult and 30 per child. Many low income BC folks have seen their income tax reduced by 70 percent or more. What a saint old King Gordo is as he passes money to the folks. Same letter en verso, in Frence. How none of this can be costing us a cent boggles the mind. And of course a big picture of Gordo just in case we forget who is our benefactor. I would prefer the money goes to the poor, the kids in poverty and not used as a means to collect more cash for his favourite visions. The man is a saint, just ask him

green taxes

1. Addressing environmental issues is NOT an option.
2.Taxes on pollution is just one part of the solution.
3.Cleaning up our act is going to be costly to some extent--time to wake up on this. It will take leadership to do it well, full-force, with the least amount of economic pain (although there will be some make no mistake)
4. Canadians have said clearly THEY ARE WILLING TO PAY for environmental action; it is in our long-term interests to invest in environmental sustainability. WE will be richer (in so many ways) for it.

Look for environmental policy that is not window dressing when you vote.

"An independent academic, Mark Jaccard,..."

David Lewis

A statement like this cannot go unchallenged, and you know very well why not.

Mark Jaccard is employed by Premier Gordon M. Campbell's "Climate Action Team". He's a member of that team, along with Prof Andrew Weaver of UVic.

Mark Jaccard co-authored a book with the very right-wing Globe and Mail pundit, Jeff Simpson, that put forward carbon taxes as the ideal solution to the task of pricing carbon. Promoting the concept is promoting their book.

Jaccard is not independent, and I believe you know that.

David Lewis

Have our emissions declined in BC since we introduced a carbon tax? I'm sure driving decreased temporarily when people were suddenly hit with a 40 cent "carbon tax" caused by higher gas prices but those are now receding.

Have people started using transit more after the cost of a ticket went up?

Did the salmon return to our rivers this summer after the carbon tax was implemented?

Did the 25% of mammals that are being pushed to extinction by habitat loss suddenly recover?

The fact is Campbell's tax has not done diddly in the day to day economics of people's lives. Its simply been ignored.

The world doesn't need carbon taxes, it needs to spend money on cleaning up rivers and lakes, it needs to enforce bans on the vacuuming of the oceans that continues daily, it needs to stop big polluters such as the tar sands, it needs to prevent toxins entering our environment, it needs to invest in lowering automobile emissions and most importantly it needs to stop deforestation and the destruction of habitat.

None of that will be helped by Campbell's 2 cent tax. And that's the real reason economists like it. Because it doesn't do anything to fix the real problems.

Its easy to find 250 economists who will tell you we shouldn't have corporate taxes at all, we shouldn't have universal health care, we shouldn't implement a national day care strategy, so why wouldn't it be just as easy to find 250 economists to say we should introduce a business friendly carbon tax?

Economists support the carbon tax because its good for business. The pressure for them to clean up their act will go away. Corporate taxes will be lowered so they will in the end even be paying less. There is no downside to business if a carbon tax is implemented but there's lots of upside. And since economists are pro-business, of course they support the carbon tax. To sell it all they need is "useful idiots" and that's where environmental groups come into the picture.

I would like to know more about DAVID LEWIS though...

G West, here's a scientific, wild assed guess.

The David Lewis we see here is not a corporate welfare bum opponent, but rather a Liberal academic welfare bum recipient.

In one form or another he's a paid Liberal blogger. He may be a student doing this on what's officially a research grant, or something like that, but one way or another he's part of the web of interlocking influences, alliances and payrolls that makes up the Liberal web. It's one more story in the never ending saga of the Sponsorship party.

The really clever thing about the way the Liberals play the game is all the spy novel deception, the multiple layers of plausible deniability. The Prof has a research grant. The student is employed on the grant, and during the day, actually does do some stuff in the lab. For about four or five of the eight hours. Then they're on the web, doing their bit for the Liberal Party.

It was Liberal-picked panels of experts that approved the research grant, over many others. But they all have impressive academic resumes, so who can question it? The Prof is published many times, so when he says he has a student doing research, who the Hell are people like you and me to question it?

The student isn't stupid. He didn't need to be told which party the team is plugging for. He needed that research assistance position and there were other grad students just as able, some even more so. When the Prof goes on and on and on about how horrified all the climate experts are, how "ashamed" they are of Carole James, how "dishonest" she and the NDP are, and how Jack Layton is just a cheap "opportunist" sucking up to the dreaded Harper, the student doesn't need a copy of Politics for Dummies to figure out what his role in the game is.

Frank , You Hit The Nail On The Head!

Asking what Premier Campbell and the BC Liberals have done for our environment is the real question. He has done nothing! The ALR has been completely compromised. 70% of applications to build on ALR land have been approved. Where are the Salmon this year? All these issues are about the environment that Gordon Campbell has ignored, no worse, destroyed.

Premier Campbell loves his Carbon Tax "shift" because it is such an easy solution, one size fits all. He wants us to believe that Carbon Taxes will shift all of our issues relating to the environment.

As Frank alluded to, most of the committed enviros in BC have fallen in line with supporting Campbell's Carbon Tax shift because they feel it is our only hope, at this point, to fix/save the planet. But what we all collectively need to do is stop consuming so much, stop driving so much. Sounds so simple, I can only wish that it was!

It strikes me that the likes of David Suzuki and Gordon Campbell need to have their respective "Carbon Footprints" made publicly known. I know some whose Carbon Footprints are very low, and I somehow doubt the same can be said for the two aforementioned public figures. Maybe we should have a public register of one's Carbon Footprint for all to see.