Frame it

Hang it on the wall over my desk. Then, when the annoucement is made that more must be done, because it isn't working, send it back to the government (with any luck not THIS party in government) to help out with the re-worked "plan"...........

I plan to spend my $100 on

I plan to spend my $100 on beer and popcorn. Thanks, Gordo!

Ye gads...

440 million.

Cash that will now be blown by the majority of people on consumer goods could have been used to build rail out to the Fraser Valley and seriously mitigate some GHG emissions.

What a crock.

It will go to the higher costs of driving

It won't cover the increase costs the 2 and a half cents per litre will represent. So I guess it will go back to Gordon and he can give himself another raise.

$100!!

Wow, between my wife and myself that's 200 big ones!! Enough for five tanks of gas, sweet!!

The Pledge: Homes for All

I'm not going to use my $100 for green purposes, but I do want to do something useful with it. So, soon after the budget was announced I decided to pledge my $100 carbon tax rebate to end homelessness in BC. I set up an online site to see if others would join me in this endeavour. So far we have 27 people who have pledged their $100 for Homes for All!

Please check out www.sfu.ca/~pagarner for more information.

How Will You Spend Your $100?

The $100 payments that our family will receive should cover the carbon tax on the gas we use driving around Vancouver for the next 10 to 20 years, and that is before the tax rebate. The BC Liberals new carbon tax has been generally well received because it is not going to make much of a change and is not a threat to anyone's habits.
How to use the Climate Action Dividend? This government, in power for many years and apparently rolling in money (the Olympics, the Convention Centre), has done nothing for the homeless. There are many charities that help the needy. This is where my $100 cheque will go.

Carbon Tax, of course

Do I detect a faint smugness in the "I don't own a car" comments by the writer? Know what, I wish I didn't have to! Us long suffering Valley dwellers have absolutely no choice, and find holier-than-thou comments by environmentalist crusaders pretty unfair. There is no transit choice here, as I work in Burnaby. My husband works in Richmond. Hence, 2 cars. And the reason? This is about as far as we can commute from, that we can afford to buy a house in! AND, we have recently been hit with another increase, from ICBC, because of our geographical location alone! Time to quit punishing those of us that contribute overall very little to the problem, and attack those who create the problem: large manufacturer polluters, etc!

Quote:Us long suffering

No one forces you to demand a house and yard and all the suburban amenities. That was a choice... and your transport woes stem from that choice. Sorry for your commute but it was in no way forced upon you.

I'm going to spend my hundred for green purposes and support B.C.'s budding agricultural sector.

/smug urban cyclist

Consumer Spending

Ploys like this to soften the blow of what should be a nationwide policy are overrated.

The average person will use the money to support the economy and large business, not to save the planet.

Not that I'm complaining, it's a rare day that the government gives anything back at all.

political party

I will give my money to the first political party that looks like it may have the following: a comprehensive environmental plan, a social conscience, and the ability to defeat the Liberals. If STV is in, then defeating the Libs won't matter as much for my money; I'll just base my donation on the other two reasons. SIG

Being on disability, I see

Being on disability, I see this as once again as the lower income earners and poor carrying the major part of this governments need to look like they are doing something on so called climate change.
Why did they not just bring a tax air travel, other than business, a carbon tax on new large vehicles and boats. Those that can afford to buy big cars, boats and use air travel, will not change their habits, but the low wage earner, or people like myself will have to find this extra money to pay for this tax from our limited budget.

$440 million 'Green Gift'

Should be used to directly enhance transport and or electrical generation projects.

$100 per person is just a waste of tax dollars and will not provide too much on an individual basis to address a reduction in personal carbon foot print.

The whole BC carbon tax implementation is flawed, in fact will not work to change very much. The thought that such is revenue neutral is completely bogus; it is not.

If the government said, ok we are building a wind farm; a solar farm etc and it will cost this amount, then apply a tax to pay for the project, then more folks would be happy to pay. Even then, there are a whole bunch of financial options other than taxing the people to address these project costs.

Carbon taxes just adds way too much administration, costs too much.

Just in Time

I will definitely be spending it on a night or two out. cover and a couple rounds of shots should do it. I bus, by organic foods, dont shop in malls, and choose Duthies over Chapters. What more can I do?
Ill throw it back into the local economy, see you on Granville.

At my favourite Sushi Bar

At my favourite Sushi Bar $100 goes a long way-see you there!

My $100

Invest it in an organization working its arse off to get us post-carbon!!
I mean geez, come on. Its tempting to be cynical about almost anything that acts like positive action these days, due to vested interests and the seeming hopelessness of it all.
I have started a firm, called Renewable Recruits, dedicated to informing people about sustainable energy training options in Canada, and recruiting folks into good jobs in this sector. I will be renewing my biz membership in the BC Sustainable Energy Association (www.bcsea.org).

Yes its a small start (the carbon tax), but its intention is to help galvanize a shift in the social attitude on these issues. BC'ers are the world's most wasteful people in both electricity and water use. Most people out there have not even come close to really identifying with the climate change issue, and this will do it to some extent.
I think a surprising number of folks will, when the cheque arrives, put it towards The Cause...
Grassroots housing & community development work is equally great. And smiles are free

100 green ones

I'll spend it on a good bottle of Scotch. Mark my words, the environmental movement is dead. It has been taken over by the establishment in the same way the peace movement was in the late 60s and early 70s. The carbon tax is a cruel hoax; window dressing for the dumb and dumber.

I will support the campaign to stop Gateway

The provincial government continues to claim that widening a freeway and twinning the Port Mann will reduce ghg and local air pollution, by solving congestion. This is nonsense and they know it!

I will donate my $100 to the Livable Region Coalition to help continue the fight

Is this, like, a "social credit"?

Maybe I'll buy me some more of them BCRIC shares.

For most it will go the same place as the GST reduction

I will probably put it toward a donation for an environmental group or to ameliorate homelessness. I encourage other people to do the same. Do it now so you have committed the money instead of being distracted by your credit card bill in July.

Unfortunately I think most people will just fritter it away on general purchases just like they typically do with the GST pennies. I expect a lot of businesses will also see this as an opportune time to up their base prices claiming it's the tax increase just like many businesses choose to maintain prices instead of passing on the 1%GST reduction. I'm not claiming it's all a money grab though because I know many businesses have held back on neccessary price increases in order to remain competitive.

I think

I`ll use it to pay the interest on my portion of the Fed/Prov debt for the month I receive it. Too bad I need to keep coming up with another 100 bucks each and every month. Aint life grand.

Before you spend it.

Does anyone out there know if this $100 per person will have to be declared as income?

I'd like to say otherwise...

... but my $100 is going straight into my belly. I'm gonna live it up for a month, and my liver's going to suffer along with me.

I'll take $30 of the rebate to pay for carbon offsets for a flight to Edmonton (go Planetair!) but otherwise I'm gonna be selfish with this one.

--
Eli

bontano

you beat mew to it. Somewhere in my files, my BCRIC shares are are sitting and growing. I should find them and cash them in. Maybe that and this $100 will start to cover the cash grab Gordo has put in place to help pay for various new highways such as twinning the Port Mann Bridge and over the Fraser in PG or the very exciting expansion of the Caribou Connector.

$100 rebate

I see the "carbon tax" as kind of silly. Why take away and then give back? It creates unneeded paperwork. Why not forget the "tax", and put that perceived amount, separate from general revenue, into environmental issues? We all know that the "carbon tax" will not stop people from gassing up their greedy SUVs.
My $100 rebate will go toward helping to somewhat defray my increasing municipal property tax, and the coming BC Hydro and Terasen Gas increases. Who knows what other living increases are coming along? Perhaps increases in transportation costs that will be reflected in all of our consumer goods.

Multiply it

I'm going to donate my $100 to an organizaiton like the Sierra Club BC (http://www.sierraclub.bc.ca/) that is working with citizens across BC to fight climate change. I currently rent a home in Victoria; I've done a lot of the little things around the house that I can to reduce my green house gas emissions. Now I want to multiply my impact by making it possible for groups like the Sierra Club and others to work on my behalf. My cheque goes to the Club.

My$100

Gordo's $100 bribe could be used to help out my OAS & CPP. Or it could buy a new Michelin Axial Carbon 700Cx25mm tyre with enough left over for a new repair patch kit.
Big deal!

Can you imagine ...

...walking up to someone and asking them to give you $100 and you promise to give it all back to him. "It's revenue neutral", you say.
He would probably think you were crazy. It is just how ludicrous this is. If the government really wanted to do something green, they didn't need to hike up the price of gas. Even the Suzuki Institute couldn't see through the farce. I guess the only plan that gets approval is to tax everything to the extreme and then by some magic, green policies will take form from somewhere. The government has plenty of money in surpluses and they have never done a darn thing. Levy extra taxes and the urban transit pampered environmentalists are practically orgasmic with delight. Go figure.

My $100 Carbon Tax Rebate

I will buy $100 worth of coal (pure carbon) and send it, one lump at a time, to our Provincial Government, as a reminder of just exactly what carbon really is.

In the case of coal, it is the remnants of extinct life.

PR, Q Beach

Carbon to Healthcare

I'll ask my husband if I can have his $100, if he agrees, I can buy 6 physiotherapy sessions.

Carbon Tax Rebate

I'm just glad I'm not a Fraser Valley commuter. As a Parksville retiree (lower mainland refugee) I've worked out that the $100 will probably cover the extra tax on my regular fuel consumption by a fair bit. I bought a 40+ mpg car eight years ago and have arranged my driving recently so that I do several errands in one trip when I do use it. That's brought my overall gasoline consumption down by a good bit. Now that I'm down to about 15-25 litres per week, that $100 should cover my direct green tax costs. Of course it'll also be passed along in the price of everything I purchase so, who knows?

donating to the Ralph Nader for President Fund

If he became president it would be the best $100 i've spent in years!

and i thought buying votes

and i thought buying votes was illegal.

the 100 buck carbon refund

How many shares of that electric car company on the Island will 100 bucks buy? What WAS the name of that company again???????? anybody remember the name of the car????

if the government was REally serious about carbon offsets, the company and those names would be on the front page of every paper in the province, and getting some hefty government grants.

Cash for Rail

Van-island wrote:

"Cash that will now be blown by the majority of people on consumer goods could have been used to build rail out to the Fraser Valley and seriously mitigate some GHG emissions."

Why don't we start a Fraser Valley Rail Fund?
A million people contribute = $100M
Federal GOV matches funds raised, etc. and we've got a serious initiative to combat climate change.

If we want to get anywhere on this issue, we can't rely on political maneuverings to get us anywhere. we've got to take this issue into our own hands. Let's see what we could do.

My 100 dollars

I will gratefully grab the 100 dollars and spend it at Chevron on petrol for my Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow Mulliner Park-Ward 2 door saloon and my Jaguar VandenPlas extended wheelbase saloon.

I think I'll need it. I also think that both of those cars will be "having tea" more often in the garage.

tax credit

http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2008/02/19/bc-introduces-a-carbon-tax/

Marc Lee says it's a tax credit, hence credited toward your taxes. So if you earned $35,000 a year in 2008, you're in the 15% tax bracket federally and the 5% tax bracket provincially, and so your $100 tax credit amounts to saving the tax on $500 of earned income (all figures VERY round).

If you earned $125,000 in 2008, you're in the 29% tax bracket federally, and 14% tax bracket provincially, and therefore your $100 tax credit would be applied against $230 of income.

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tax/individuals/faq/taxrates-e.html

At least it's progressive in application. And $100 won't go a long way toward filling a Hummer tank. Not that Hummer drivers seem to care - they all see to be private businessmen using their vehicle and expenses as a tax dodge.

Squeezed out...

...of the buyers market, the rental market, the flea-bag hotel market, the housing market, and the cardboard box market, thanks to Civil City. If we squeeze a little harder, we can squeeze them out of our minds too.

The wife and I will donate ours to those who got piss-all in the budget. Thanks Carole, from the homeless.

http://www.morethanaroof.org/

My $100.

I can't get over the negativity of many respondents to this article! I think this carbon tax is a very good start and I wish the feds would convert the gasoline tax they levy to such a tax with the accompanying rebates, etc. on eco-friendly purchases of all kinds raised to match. That way, we could all, over time, avoid the taxes by making better choices.

I plan to use my $100. to buy a new bike helmet so I'm once more legal to ride my bike. I haven't ridden it in years since i lost the last helmet. And, although I'm a pensioner, I've recently parted with several thousand dollars on a new pellet stove (carbon neutral) and better windows, with no help from any government.

And, if there's any money left over, I'll stop at Starbucks for a couple of good coffees while I ride home from the grocery store!

-Gordonf

Homes for All

I'm joining the Homes for All project and will donate my $100 to it. Kirsten Ebsen

Plant a Tree

I'm going to buy a palm tree for the garden.

I can't resist

I'll take that $100 and spend most of it on beer and women.

The rest I'll just waste. ha ha ha!

Seriously, I'd like to get twenty $5 bills, and write my name on them, then give them to folks who are in need, then ask them to do something nice for another human being, then see if any of those fivers ever come back to me.

I like to think it could make a difference.

Wow - great comments!

I was hoping it would prompt a rowdy conversation.

One thing I want to address, to Sufigirl:

Someone was bound to accuse me of smugness eventually!

For the record, I don't own a house because I can't afford one. Same goes for a car. I'd like to buy a home, but prices in this crazy city would probably leave me no option but to move out of the core, like you've done. Then odds are pretty good I might not have access to viable transportation options, and would be too far from work to feasibly bike. I think we're agreed on the problems, and I don't blame people in your situation for consuming more carbon than I do. North American cities aren't designed to make it easy on you. 'Metro' Vancouver's no exception, though it's better than some.

My point was more that given my current circumstances, this carbon tax and dividend will have very little impact on my consumer behaviour. Which led me to wonder what I should do with the money, if it doesn't need to offset the pain of fuel taxes etc.

Large carbon emitters are going to get hit eventually, but I agree they've got it pretty easy right now. Collectively though, our individual lifestyles (forced, or chosen), do add up.

Keep the great ideas and healthy skepticism coming!

Yeah!!!

Its a big one! A whopping one hundred dollars for my efforts to wards protecting our environment and I'm happy someone noticed however its not something you can put a price tag on it should just be away of life and look forward to seeing major incentives being given to families and small business to convert to more Eco friendly vehicles a common sense solution rather than putting all your eggs in one basket, Translink.

my hundred bucks

WOW!!! oh , the things one could do.I'm getting the feeling that our governments both prov. and fed. are addicted to our cash. And just like any other addict, they will lie, cheat and steal to get their fix.
People will spend their $100 in a myriad of ways but the government will surely get a piece of it to satisfy their addiction.
As with anyone who suffers with an addiction,it just makes you feel sad and helpless to watch.

100 Dollars

I probably won't get it anyway. If I did I would use it buy paint and a roller and put left turn lanes all along Knight St and Clarke Drive. And make every street in Vancouver 6 lanes.

I'm, sort of, kidding.

It will be a blip in my spending, I won't even notice it. Maybe, the municipal goverment will increase their taxes by 100 dollars, and I'll never see the money.

Or my strata will take it for the new decks.
Or I'll help my daughter buy another car. The 1999 Saturn we gave her a few years ago will not pass aircare anymore, because they changed the test. And Saturn ruined the car in 2002, when they didn't fix the transmission properly. Thats why it won't pass, to many codes in the cars computer.

So many bills...Too much bullshit..

Mine's going back in my

Mine's going back in my pocket where it will have come from in the first place.

It seems to me that if the government were serious about this issue it would have sent everyone a monthly bus pass. Then again, I suppose it would have just driven everyone back into their automobiles after experiencing first hand what a crap transit system we have.

For Lewis

How can we be "green" if we have lost all public control over our own resources?

I'd gladly give mine to help launch a class action suit on behalf of the people of this province for the loss of our commonly owned resources, slyly stolen from us through a process of relentless privatization.... in hopes that some are still retrievable.

That's for you, Lewis.

(Lewis often posted here in the early days of The Tyee. It was a very good idea of his then.... an even better one now.)

changed my mind - i'm with lynn

lynn said:
I'd gladly give mine to help launch a class action suit on behalf of the people of this province for the loss of our commonly owned resources, slyly stolen from us through a process of relentless privatization.... in hopes that some are still retrievable.
I'll give $300 toward a class action suit and $100 toward a socially and environmentally responsible government.

The suit can be for anything that will bring this government down. Possibilities include:

Railgate,
BCFerries mismanagement,
Run of river hydro,
Selling BC Hydro,
Convention Centre construction mismanagement by Doebell-dipper,
Freedom of information blocking,
Privatization of healthcare,
Failing to follow Canadian Constitution,
Contracting out of provincial services to foreign corporations,
The list goes on....and on...

class action suit

If there was even the slightest reality that the government had actually committed something that they could charged, or sued over, there would be plenty of lawyers fighting each other to be the ones to get their names on the legal papers. Don't you guys know how the legal system works? Where's the Pivot Legal Society?

The thing is folks, what you like to call crimes is just government policies. The fact that you don't like the policies doesn't make them illegal. Thats why we have elections, so that the public can cast judjment on these policies.

Instead of silly calls for lawsuits that will never happen, why don't you just give your cash to the NDP? Thats your only hope to toss out the bums. Where's the faith?