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Inside BC's Mining Boom
Why billions are pouring in for copper, coal, uranium.
Highland Valley copper mine: Green driven?
British Columbia's mining industry unearthed an unprecedented $8.1 billion in revenue in 2006, and posted net income of $2.3 billion. B.C. miners reaped these record-smashing profits not by digging up more ore -- total shipments decreased by 4 per cent to 25 million tons -- but by cashing in on a soaring global market for commodity prices.
"Results for the '06 industry are truly nothing short of spectacular," said Michael Cinnamond, an author of the annual PricewaterhouseCoopers report, from which these results are drawn. "It was by far the highest net revenue and earnings that we've ever reported."
Highlights of Mining Report
PriceWaterhouseCooper's 39th annual survey, The Mining Industry in British Columbia -- 2006, summarizes financial information from B.C.'s 17 operating metal and coal mines, one smelter, six operations in the permitting stages, eight mines in the reclamation stage and 10 exploration stage properties.
Among the report's highlights:
- Gross revenues: $8.08 billion
- Net income: $2.35 billion
- Industry spending: $6.75 billion
- Payments to governments: $799 million
- Shareholder after-tax ROI: 64.8 per cent
- Shipments: 25.5 million tonnes
- New capital: $408 million
Shareholders yielded an after-tax return on investment of 64.8 per cent last year. Payments to federal, provincial and local governments totalled $799 million, or about 10 per cent of gross revenue.
"I can't imagine a happier industry," said MLA Kevin Krueger, the BC Liberals' minister of state for mining. "There's really great cooperation between this government and industry."
Mining employment rose to 7,345 direct employees in 2006, earning an average salary and benefits package worth $99,900. Mining remains the largest private sector employer of Aboriginal people in Canada.
"I'm never supposed to be at a loss for words," Krueger told mining executives gathered in Vancouver this week. "I really like your words. Words like 'spectacular' and 'nothing short of unprecedented' and 'eclipsed' and 'by far the highest.' Those are excellent words."
Green copper tops coal
Copper prices rose 83 per cent last year, pushing copper ahead of coal as the largest contributor to mining revenue. B.C. miners sold about $2 billion worth of copper in 2006.
"Even more impressive is the growth of prices in the first quarter of this year," Cinnamond said. "I think we can expect copper to continue to be one of the largest contributors in 2007."
"Copper is the most important commodity we produce in this province," said Michael McPhie, president of the Mining Association of British Columbia. He noted that the worldwide shift toward electric transportation, widely perceived as green technology, is helping to drive up copper demand.
"A Toyota Prius contains 30 more pounds of copper than a regular car," McPhie said. "There are 9,000 pounds of copper in an electric bus."
Mineral prices have risen and fallen in relatively predictable cycles for generations. But as resource demand rises simultaneously across the so-called "BRIC" nations -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- some economists are calling this a prolonged "super-cycle."
"There are many who suggest that we are in the midst of a super cycle for commodities, and that we should expect strong prices to continue for many years to come," McPhie told a luncheon at the Vancouver Board of Trade. "The overwhelming evidence is that we are in for a fairly prolonged bull run."
Others warn that the expectation of green demand has whipped copper prices into a speculative bubble. "There's a lot of copper around the world," said Joan Kuyek of MiningWatch Canada. "Also, copper is one of the most easily recycled materials; it could be profitably mined from U.S. and Canadian landfills."
Coal remains a burning issue
Coal was the second largest contributor of 2006 mining revenue, contributing $1.98 billion in BC. Coal is a relatively dirty fuel that faces mounting environmental criticism, both because its combustion generates excessive greenhouse gas emissions, and also because coal burning releases toxic metals such as mercury.
"Industry must change and adapt, there is no doubt," McPhie acknowledged. But he questioned some of the solutions being proposed by environmentalists.
"Take carbon offsets for example," McPhie said. "Not unlike the penance paid to the church in medieval times for untoward indulgences, this is not what is going to save our planet from the vagaries of increasing population, deforestation and over consumption."
Through McPhie praised Premier Gordon Campbell's generous treatment of the mining industry, he criticized the premier's new plan aimed at slowly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. McPhie said these policies, "essentially shut down any opportunity to utilize our abundant coal reserves for future energy production."
"Wouldn't it have made sense, rather than sterilizing a huge resource, for the government to work with industry, the [environmental] community and others to ... investigate the possibility of creating a clean coal energy sector within the province?" McPhie asked.
Kuyek agreed that it would make more sense for B.C. to sell electricity than to export raw coal. "It's better economically. And it's better that we live with the consequences of what we do -- both the economic benefit, as well as the less beneficial environmental and cultural consequences," she said. "Nowhere in this detailed PriceWaterhouseCoopers report is there any accounting of the damage to air, water, and wilderness inflicted by the mining industry."
Exploration booming
McPhie warned that the good times won't last if BC doesn't open new mines. "When times are good, it's time to make investments," he said. "These are revenues [from] mines that were built more than 10 years ago. Only one new mine opened in the last year and a half."
The provincial government figures $265 million was spent on exploration last year, an increase of 20 per cent. "That makes 2006 the seventh consecutive year of increases in explorations spending," said Cinnamond.
"We have 25 of the 52 major projects across Canada that are coming down the pike here in British Columbia," boasted MLA Krueger, "and eight more in the pre-approval process."
Krueger is particularly eager to see a mine developed in the Interior, where the mountain pine beetle has cut short the forestry industry's future. The province put $25 million into Geoscience BC, which is studying the complex geology beneath BC's volcanic interior. "They are focusing on the mountain pine beetle kill area," Krueger said. "Those communities really need new economic activity. Because of the complexities of the geology under the land where the pines have been growing, we needed some modern techniques. And we're going to be rolling out some programs shortly."
"There are myriad undiscovered deposits out there in the mountains," said Pierre Lebel, who chairs both Imperial Metals Corporation and the mining association. "But so far our endowment has not been the kind ... where a mine just builds itself."
Infrastructure: Who pays?
In order to build new mines, the industry is calling for massive public spending. Among the investments called for by McPhie are the Gateway Project of freeways around Vancouver, the twinning of the Canadian Pacific rail lines to Vancouver's ports, and a $300-million power line that would extend the electrical grid to the province's remote northwest corner.
"The full electrification of Highway 37 should be pursued vigorously." McPhie said. If such a project were to include a connection to Alaska, he added, "the power line would open up a green power and industrial development corridor that would connect the entire west coast of North America."
Kuyek said the mines themselves should pay for their fair share of the infrastructure they require: "The richest vein of gold the Canadian mining industry has ever tapped was the one they discovered in the taxpayer's arm."
The B.C. mining industry made payments to governments totalling $799 million in 2005. That figure includes federal and provincial income tax, mineral taxes (royalties), provincial sales taxes, gasoline and fuel taxes, property taxes, and even income taxes paid by mining employees. And yet that number is still only 10 per cent of revenue.
Kuyek speculated that B.C. miners probably already receive more than that amount in subsidies such as roads, ports, and cheap electricity. "Not to mention their subsidy from the environment. They get their water for free, and they don't return it clean."
"There's another number here," Lebel said, noting that direct payments to governments is only part of the picture. "Our industry spends $6.7 billion in the province in 2006," he said. "The money reverberates through the economy, benefiting everyone."
McPhie encouraged Premier Campbell to invest in the future, in the style of BC's longest-serving premier, W.A.C. Bennett. "These are investments," McPhie said, "like the Bennett dams of the '60s that would make a big difference to the future prosperity of the province."
Related Tyee stories:
- 'War Brewing' over Mining Rights in Rural BC
Infuriated landowners rally to regain control of their property. A special report. - Company Grabs Mining Rights to Premier's Land
Campbell's waterfront home swept up in rush to exploit the Libs' loosened mining laws. - Salmon Kills and the Politics of Mining the Fraser
BC's hunger for gravel is voracious.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Who Mowed Down the Premier?
- Canada's Economy, Deconstructed (by a 12 year-old)
- Death in Remand: a Tyee Inquiry
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Death In Remand: 'A Gut Feeling'
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Now Is the Time to Talk up Big Ideas
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- Bill C-38: the Environmental Destruction Act
- Alberta Fills Pipes with Corrosive Denial
- Bias in BC's Pesticide Decision? Follow the Bouncing Verbs
- How Our Immune Systems Exaggerate Fear
- BC biotech company seeks approval for GM apple
- What's Behind BC's Doors?
- The Ethics of Addiction Studies
- What's Behind BC's Doors?
- The Gem of Canadian Science that Harper Killed
- Sexism Tinges Criticism of Teachers' Job Action
- Should You Run from that Medical Test?
- 'The Dictator'
- Death in Remand: Stacked Deck
- 'Moonrise Kingdom'
- From Financial Advisor to Occupier
- Seven Goals to Build the Conservative 'Dream'
41
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Chris H
5 years ago
Propery rights and stock promoters
With the price of commodities at record highs you can expect conflict between property owners and mining companies to increase substantially. I also suspect what we saw in the seventies and eighties: a large number of junior mining companies into exploration that over-promoted their own stock. As soon as the word is out on these "big" profits, everyone rushes in to invest. Didn't we have a stock market here in Vancouver at one time? I believe that the mining industry has a lot of the blame for its move out of BC.
realisticman
5 years ago
Another Good News Story
Since we all have minerals incorporated into everything we use, unless we are living in the stone age, the fact that this industry is beck on track is a good news story.
The numbers are impressive and so they should be. Interesting to note that minerals explorations funding has multiplied 10 fold to over $260 million per year, from where it was during the disastrous rein of the mining-hating past NDP government.
The earnings figures for employees are also good with almost $100,000 per year being the norm. With the advent of clean coal-burning technologies the opportunities for BC become even more promising.
Punch 'clean coal' into Google and see how this is not crazy idea. Or, read he Globe's article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070516.wreynolds16/BNStory/Business/columnists
WillOwens
5 years ago
I as much as anyone am
I as much as anyone am enjoying fully this mining boom throughout western canada, my summer job in the oil industry is paying my way through university. But, i´m doing something different and taking that money and putting it somewhere else. Of course i could quit school and ride the wave of big money jobs and become more and more reliant on this sector for a job, but i´m investing in schooling and a different lifestyle. Instead of continually investing in new mines and new mining technologies in a never-ending quest to increase profits shouldn´t we be taking a collective look elsewhere and invest in areas that can move us away from an over reliance on commodities that besides there monetary value are incredibly harmful to the world we live in?
G West
5 years ago
Not really new R/Man
Just another business booster Neil Reynolds' story I'm afraid.
This is a technology that may show some promise for small isolated plants as long as the problem of sequestering CO2 reliably and efficiently can be solved. Right now it's an interesting prospective stock play - guess that's why it's in the business pages.
All gonna happen, if ever, a long time from now - considering much of BC's coal is currently contributing to clouds of pollution killing the Chinese people I think we have more important things to worry about on the coal file.
freebear
5 years ago
Industry subsidy & zero emmission cars
First I do not think anything any particular provincial government does (really) determine whether mining and mineral exploration grows or not.
It is all about commodity prices-no expanding global economy - no increase in commodity prices-no mining.
So no real credit should go to the previous governments, or the government of the day, or past days!
And for those that trumpet the zero emission vehicle; is it really zero emissions?
When: ""A Toyota Prius contains 30 more pounds of copper than a regular car," McPhie said. "There are 9,000 pounds of copper in an electric bus."
In other words there are emissions from electric cars when you consider the product's life cycle, which includes mining the matterials such as copper. I do not think those big mining ore carriers are electric!
freebear
5 years ago
& Industry Subsidies!
Oops forgot my previous headline!
What gets my goat is private business saying government should get of the way of business, while at the same time asking for tax payer paid for infrastructure!
As noted in the article why doesn't the industry pay for the infrastructure they need, like the "electrified highway 37" ?
RickW
5 years ago
Add to freebear's....
Uh, free enterprise anyone? My take on this is that, if the private sectors wants and needs public sector involvement (money) then it should be strictly as an investor, and no different than any other shareholder. If it costs (say) $50 million to knock a road into an area and bring in power, then the company must provide that much in secured shares to the government(s) in question, preferably local governments, which are chronically short of funds (while MLAs vote themselves comfortable raises). And as for general infrastructure projects (such as twinning of the rail line - mentioned in the article), then that cost should be shared among the companies it serves, with the same arrangement as above.
Too many times though, massive public spending to serve priovste interests, just doesn't add up........
BC Dude
5 years ago
Why is Campbell still in
Why is Campbell still in power?
Why do WE the taxpayer always have to pay big minning or all corporations tax insentitives or gifts out of OUR hard earned money?
Every time the Liberals are on front page msm it's time for US to do some investigating!
G Clark was innocent (a 2thousand dollar porch) but he still stepped down.
G Campbell was front and center behind the G Clark's character assassination with big media BCTV, and other helpers for weeks (porchgate) armed with search warrants etc!
We had a great province under G Clark strong, fair for all and not bought off by big biz and organized crime!
Gordo and his fascist MLA's Have given away BC Rail, BC Hydro, BC Ferries, ALR's, etc.
2010 Winter Olympics secret overruns, meetings held behind closed doors with the public kept out by VPD?
TILMA the giveaway of All OUR Rights and Freedoms too the Corrupt Corporations!
Fascisum needs secrecy and the puppydog main stream media CanWest to succeed.
We the people are starting to fight back like RIP http://harrietspirit.blogspot.com/
And: http://bettysearlyedition.blogspot.com/2007/02/bettys-final-submissions-to-madam.html
10 months in prison and being charged 90 cents a call?
RickW
5 years ago
BC Dude
So THAT'S why it has been called the Dismal Decade! Big Biz wuzn't getting their payola!
BC Dude
5 years ago
Thanx Rick, so where's my
Thanx Rick, so where's my trickle down? lol
BC Dude
5 years ago
Just watching the ctv
Just watching the ctv no-news big splash, as big pay increases are accepted by ndp party, and gordo and gang clear on-mass the Legislature blg what bunch of bs.
Just smoke to take the heat off the real crime BC Rail/Legislature scandal and I know gordo isn't smart enough for all these rotten criminal acts "Treason" against US the people of British Columbia.
I still say he has committed "Treason" by giving our publicly owned corporations away to foreign corporations!
Are We "Canadians" not at war to keep Our Freedom of Speech and Democracy safe from predators, now especially Within?
CORRUPTION = CANCER = ERADIATE THEM!
Take out the head of the serpent and the rest will dwindal and die!
realisticman
5 years ago
Here's your trickle, dude..
perhaps you didn't read it.
"Our industry spends $6.7 billion in the province in 2006," he said. "The money reverberates through the economy, benefiting everyone."
As for WillOwens,
You wouldn't have a computer to play with if it weren't for mining for the components. Would you prefer the Stone Age?
realisticman
5 years ago
Accent the Negative
I guess Garth doesn't Google, so here's one;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4468076.stm
At the present rate of extraction, approx 25 million tons per year, British Columbia has 250 years worth of coal. We ain't gonna go back to candles and no computers.
G West
5 years ago
All old news - been covered here before
Months ago. In fact, I think I quoted something very similar this to you at the time:
That's one of the advantages of keeping a record of everything I write - carefully filed according to the interlocutor I was responding to.
In addition, as I mentioned above, CHINA is burning our coal.
The byproducts of that combustion are ending up in the atmosphere.
Naturally, corporate ‘kleptocrats’ don’t think there’s anything wrong with that because they believe in the false god of the market and the concept of a continually growing and expanding economy. It’s a nightmare scenario that is making things worse for a larger and larger proportion of the population at the same time that it’s wrecking the environment and the capacity of the Earth to sustain human, animal and vegetative life.
It really ought to be added to Canada's account in the world-wide Greenhouse gas register - as should the gases from the vehicles running on hydrocarbon fuels in the USA be added to the enormous contribution that the oil sands extraction process makes to Canada's direct greenhouse gas tally.
By the way, did you read the article from Foreign Affairs on the subject of the ‘costs’ to the poor of another miracle cure for our problems – ethanol?
Or do you just read Neil Reynolds and blind business booster baloney science?
We need to start being part of the solution and stop contributing to the problem. The whole idea of growth as a panacea is nonsense and the notion that coal, whether it's using the S. African gasification process cribbed from the Nazis or some other scheme is just another way to avoid the hard choices that we need to start making about the way we actually live. Remember that friend of yours and his family. There are millions of families all across this country who are struggling in the same way he is.
Time to stop ignoring them and pretending everything is fine.
snert
5 years ago
Talk about false economies.
G West
The shuffling of carbon credits has got to be the worst. All it does is try to correct a situation with smoke and mirrors.
Talk about "false gods".
realisticman
5 years ago
You can be an old cornball
Yes, Westie I know about maize. Tortilla riots coming soon. 450lbs of corn needed to fill ONE tank in an SUV. That's why clean-coal will probably be one answer. More coal BTUs in in Illinois than oil BTUs in Saudi, I hear.
By the way I happen to have a copy of Foreign Affairs on my bedside table, FYI.
catfish
5 years ago
says it all
Kuyek said....: "The richest vein of gold the Canadian mining industry has ever tapped was the one they discovered in the taxpayer's arm."
realisticman
5 years ago
Blame 'em for everything
Kuyek also likes to quote Emil Salim regarding his study on Extractive Industries, saying, "...environmental degradation which can destroy livelihoods; social disruption and conflict in communities - including displacement, social and health problems like prostitution, drinking, drugs and AIDS; militarization, corruption and human rights abuses."
I guess he forgot to add childhood obesity and cold winters.
G West
5 years ago
R/Man
If I'd known you were a fan I'd have let you know before I sold the three boxes of FA I had collected in my basement since I initially subscribed in 1978.
What's your point?
realisticman
5 years ago
A Young Punk
I doubt that I would have been interested Garth, I started reading Foreign Affairs around 1973.
My point is, yes ethanol is impractical and will hurt the poor, particularly in Latin America. [I presume that was your point?]
G West
5 years ago
Of course it was
The key to saving the world is not to find new technical dodges to avoid the inevitable but to face it squarely and CHANGE the way we live.
There is not going to be any technical safety valve to get us out of a mess that greed, selfishness, colonialism, and racism have created.
We save ourselves by saving others: Recognizing in them the shared humanity that makes the whole project worthwhile.
Capitalism and the market economy is killing the world and it's people - we are not going to grow our way out of this mess.
That's the point.
realisticman
5 years ago
You're not proselytizing are you?
Don't you mean, we save others by saving ourselves? Spiritually, of course.
BC Dude
5 years ago
www.bcfiberals.com/ These
http://www.bcfiberals.com/
These are a bunch of treasonous, criminal, fascist pigs in OUR BC Legislature Buildings, WHY?
http://www.vancourier.com/issues06/062206/news/062206nn3.html
RickW
5 years ago
BC Dude
Your portion of the trickle down got snatched up by the Libs. You got to be fast to stay ahead, and you got to be ruthless to keep it......
G West
5 years ago
Absolutely not
I mean it literally
Not spiritually. Spirituality is just a personal matter.
The point is that without responding to the conditions of other's lives empathetically and finding ways to preserve the physical world for future generations we will be responsible for our own demise - as individuals and as a species. Perhaps I could recommend to you the following:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/g8_poverty_letter/tf.php
realisticman
5 years ago
quite right
Subsequent to your recommendations, to which I concur, I can report that today we planted over 50 seeds that we had just recently germinated, to enhance the physical world and I wrote to Pete McMartin encouraging him to pursue in subsequent columns the pleading of the mother he quoted on Thursday who is pleading for less money being doled out to those on the streets, since this only perpetuates the misery of the Downtown East Side.
Let's hope that together we can build a better world.
I'm sure you approve.
G West
5 years ago
Start 'praying' for a recession
Because a full-blown recession is about the only thing that's likely to save this country R/Man. The greed and selfishness, the arrogant self-image and elitist thinking have penetrated just too far into the consciousness of the people who hold the political power to actually effect some change.
The 'investor' class is at this very moment up-bidding the 'value' of a decent home in every city in this country to the point where average earners nowhere in Canada will be able to afford home ownership while doctors, lawyers and the business elite will own dozens of them as a source of 'passive' income and indolence.
Until we change the tax system and make every dollar, no matter how earned, available for tax, things are just going to get worse. That’s what started in the 70s and the people who pretend it has been a ‘good’ thing are either compromised or blind, in my view.
You totally miss the point - both as to what's wrong with the mining industry, what's wrong with politics and what's wrong with charity.
Your education hasn't really even started yet my friend. Fifty seeds won’t cut it. Five times fifty billion seeds won’t cut it.
Most of the people who express the ideas you've quoted so approvingly would really just rather the poor and homeless were dead. Then no money at all would have to be WASTED on them.
Some empathy!
But something Jonathan Swift would have understood completely.
realisticman
5 years ago
Tax
West, are you recommending that the capital tax exemption on principal residences be abolished? That could bring the price of property down, couldn't it? How about the barter system? Should goods in-kind exchange hands would you like to see tax collected based on values assessed?
As for empathy, I agree with the pleading mother of the now ex-druggie and share her concern. I think that she is right - less cash given will help. Help being the word that explains my empathy.
G West
5 years ago
I don't have a problem
With not eliminating the capital gains exemption on ONE residence; in one lifetime but I'd really rather create a system where even that gain is taxed. The system ought not thrive on the principle that the only way anyone can get ahead, if they haven't chosen their parents well, is by cashing in on real estate inflation.
Did you not read what I wrote? Market driven capitalism is a curse, not a blessing. Pray for a recession - War probably won't do the trick any more.
In fact my point was quite clear - as it has been consistenly from the beginning.
Barter wouldn't be necessary if the tax system were actually fair and fairly administered.
It isn't, it hasn't been and the Liberals and Conservatives have continually made it worse and vested more and more cash and property in the hands of fewer and fewer selfish and self-aware people. I think you KNOW that.
Even the Americans, without looking to more distant examples, handle homelessness and poverty better in many of their urban areas than we do.
Do you NEVER read any of the material I post on these subjects or would I be correct in assuming that your complaints are just attempts to salve a guilty conscience on the part of someone who actually knows better.
BC Dude
5 years ago
realisticman: A nation can
realisticman:
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear: Cicero Marcus Tullius
realisticman
5 years ago
Qui, moi?
Don't know what you're talking about when you say complaining West. I was agreeing with you and asking a couple of questions, that's all.
Hey Dude, you're right Joe McCarthy and his ism lives, eh? We need to be more tolerant and we must have more freedom of expression, eh?
G West
5 years ago
Thanks for that Realisticman
I'm very pleased you do agree with me.
I interpreted your reiteration of the point about the inadvisability of anyone using money to solve society's problems (if they happen to involve the addicted or the homeless) amounting to a worthless generic idea as 'criticism'.
I think it was an understandable conclusion.
However, if that wasn't your intent - then I'm pleased to retract the statement.
By the way, I was just listening
By the way, did you hear Michael Enright’s interview with Ha Jin this morning?
I he’s right – and the people I know who’ve been to China recently seem to support his conclusions – things are much worse in China today for the vast majority of the Chinese people than they were 20 years ago. Our commodity exports to the PRC aren’t doing them much good either.
Sad. Wealth should serve people, not the other way around.
Ciao!
RickW
5 years ago
A Flat Tax..........
....is the only truly egalitarian way to go. Anything else is discriminatory, no matter what reasons are given. As soon as any one party or person obtains the ability to selectively manipulate taxation, all the rules go out the door.
G West
5 years ago
Rick W
As long as a flat tax system is balanced by a negative income tax or a set of realistic exemptions to protect the lower third of income earners, single parents, young families starting out, students paying for their education, the old and the disabled (among others) I'm beginning to think you might be able to convince me Rick W.
The ability to use the tax system to favour one particular class of citizens and corporate entities has demonstrated the clear failure of the current method. I’ve certainly seen enough of the horrors of our system that simply rewards the rich and the indolent, the well born and the fortunate.
I suspect, though, that the transition period would be difficult and there would still be real problems with inheritance and trust issues.
My wish list would simply begin with the change to treating all income (investment, interest, capital gains, inheritance etc. exactly the same) and then studying how that might affect revenues, compliance, business and productivity etc.
Some jurisdictions are using a flat tax right now. The history (19th century Europe) of the flat tax (without exemptions and lower-end protection) is not sanguine – as Karl Marx will attest. In fact, it was the shortcomings of the flat tax regime with no exemptions that led to Marxist reform and the graduated income tax.
Mostly countries from the former Soviet Bloc are in the flat-tax experiment today: A flat-rate income tax program was initiated by Estonia in 1991, followed by Latvia (1994), Lithuania (1994), Russia (2001), Serbia (2003), Ukraine (2003), Slovakia (2003), Georgia (2004) and Romania (2005).
Unfortunately, few of the systems in these countries provide lower-end exemptions and the results seem largely to have favoured the rich AND work against increasing equity.
G West
5 years ago
More on Flat Tax
Rick W
Just as a way of possibly stimulating more debate, I hunted up this article on the web that deals with the experiences of some of the jurisdictions I mentioned above.
I thought you might be interested:
http://www.euractiv.com/en/taxation/imf-study-flat-tax-craze/article-158903
Marysue
5 years ago
massive public spending to serve private interests
If we're helping out private interests like that, and giving them tax breaks we'd all die for, then we should OWN most of the voting shares in the company. Actually, all resource-based industries hsould be publicly owned, anyway. The resources are ours--the trees, the minerals, the water, etc., and we're not getting enough back for them! How stupid are we to vote for people who give our assets away?
BC Dude
5 years ago
Marysue I agree 100% with
Marysue I agree 100% with your truth be said "Our" British Columbian's own these resources! How did we lose control of them in the first place?
We recieved 10% of GR we should be taking at least 40% or better yet Nationalize all corporations as they are trying TILMA against us!
A look into Canadian mining companies "dirty little tricks" practices.
http://www.pwrdf.org/stories/all-stories/stories/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=320
Is this what we British Columbians have to look forward to?
bikerbill
5 years ago
Changing the way we live
I agree with G West that the way we live has to change if we are to reduce our environmental impact to a level that is sustainable.
But what better ways to make this happen than with technology and the market economy? How else are you going to persuade 40 million people to change their behaviour and voluntarily forsake their consumption desires? Mind control perhaps?
So lets just keep up the pressure on weak governements to internalise environmental costs into prices, regulate access to natural resources, place absolute limits on environmental burden, no more subsidies of one industry over another. Then let the economy grow as much as it likes. If consumption causes no environmental harm whats wrong with economic growth?
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
bikerbill
5 years ago
Environmental accounting
It's true the Pricewaterhousecoopers report mentioned in the article contains no data on environmental performance. I can't believe that the BC mining industry would condone a complete lack of environmental accounting like this (there is one paragraph on Reclammation and Environmental Management that contains a few figures on clean-up costs). My guess is PwC are a bit out of touch with the industry's needs. They've probably been churning out this report with the same team since the 70's and are out of touch with today's corporate world which is accutely conscious of environmental and social performance. This is typical of the big accounting firms. You would at least expect a bit of 'greenwashing'! I'm sure McKinsey or a more progressive organisation would have written a very different perspective.
G West
5 years ago
bikerbill
Since the market economy and the urge to globalize (in an ‘economic’ and not the ‘social’ sense of the term) has gotten us into this mess, I have no confidence whatever that it will get us out of it. In fact, quite the contrary as a close look at both China and India will clearly reveal.
We are now in danger of opting for a bio-fuels initiative which will remove even more agricultural production capacity from the growing of foodstuffs by turning arable land into a monoculture to sustain the carbon transportation economy.
These are the kinds of ‘projects’ that the market economy supports and they are bankrupt.
I think about all we can hope for is that the crash, when it comes, doesn't make some kind of sustainable future - for whatever segment of the human family remains - impossible.
We ain't gonna buy our way out of this one I'm afraid.
Even the so-called leaders of the environmental movement (are you listening Al Gore?) who suggest market solutions to this problem can't seem to utter a sentence that isn't littered with compromised spin and unnecessary padding.
Time to pare down.
BC Dude
5 years ago
What ever happened to the
What ever happened to the Electric car?
http://www.pluginamerica.com/dontcrush.shtml
http://www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/
We should be up in arms about this very real crime against the enviroment a new law with real teeth should be brought to bear "Criminal Crimes Against the Enviroment" for all Corporation!