Stéphane Dion and his Liberals have proposed a carbon tax. A tax that the Conservatives say will be a tax on all of us. Can someone tell me why the need for this tax? The market right now with oil @ $140.00 and gas @ $1.42 should accomplish the same thing shouldn’t it? Basically it is getting more and more expensive to drive/fly/run your lawn-mower/whatever. This should encourage people to use less, shouldn’t it? Am I missing a point here? Listen up Stéphane we don’t need more taxes.
This article appears in Jun 26 – Jul 2, 2008.
FWIW, as I understand it, Dion’s proposal doesn’t additionally tax gasoline, as that is already taxed federally— so there shouldn’t be any increase in gasoline prices as a result. And, supposedly, the tax will be in the end revenue neutral— whatever increase revenues are brought in by the tax will be matched by tax reductions on other taxes. Devil in the details, and all that.The point of the tax is to get large GHG emitters, like Nova Scotia Power (whose coal plants are among the worse polluters in Canada) to figure out less polluting ways to do what they’re doing. I’m not sure what I think of Dion’s proposal at this point– I need more information before I can get behind it. I think, tho, that if it’s implemented sensibly, it could be worthwhile, and I think that Nova Scotia should be pushing for a cap and trade system to go along with the carbon tax, so that Nova Scotia can benefit financially from reducing emissions from the coal plants. The biggest drawback to a carbon tax, as I see it, is that it could hit poor people very hard on the home heating oil front. A carbon tax should include a tax rebate for at least home heating, and possibly more.Lastly, in my conversations with business people, I find that they aren’t really opposed to a carbon tax. What they want, tho, is consistency and predictability so they can plan for the future. And that’s fair, I think.
Harper hasn’t announced his plan yet because George W. hasn’t told Harper what he wants yet.
The devil IS the Detail – we don’t need even more complicated tax laws than we already have. Then of course we’d need more burocracy to deal with the laws and the tax rebates and decide who’s worthy or not. (those hard working families right at the cut off line watch their lazy ass neighbours get a rebate -great for middle class morale too)What about rewarding innovation? And “consistency and predictability?” – we’re dealing with World Oil prices and a cartel (OPEC) . Do you think a myriad of laws, rebates, and reformatting the tax system to ensure neutrality is going to be any easier to navigate, predict or understand than the current system?
My concern over a carbon tax is that I can’t see the immediate incentive for polluting companies to do anything but transfer the higher cost of doing business on to the consumer. Take NSPower for example. They have no competition here, so all they will do is ask for another rate hike to offset their increased costs….and that is probably a more legitamate reason than some of the others that have been approved. Now, if the government let the wind and tidal developers sell power to the consumer directly, instead of through NSP, then there might be more incentive for NSP to stop using as much coal. One way a carbon tax might practically work to make companies greener, is if there were already upstart green alternatives competing with larger polluters. Then the green companies would have a competitive advantage by being able to offer a cheaper product compared to the increasingly pricy polluter products. But that same advantage would exist with a cap-and-trade mechanism where green companies can sell their carbon credits to polluters. Maybe a combination of a carbon tax and a cap and trade would be a better solution?
So Tim, and some other business owners, are an exact example of what’s wrong with Canada, supporting the carbon tax idea, which is another way for Dion to get richer off poor peoples backs. I can understand if the Dion proposed that Corp.s couldn’t pass that tax on to consumers, but he didn’t, which he doesn’t care about that, He just wants to get rich. That’s what the tax is, another money grab, unlike Tim proposes it is. Miles, NSP is provincially owned, they’ll never let another company come in. It’s NS man, we work against the people, not for the people. I personally think that’s the motto of Canada anyway.Confused, there’s no point to that Carbon Tax, it’s just another way to make money. Kind of how Car inspection is. They don’t do it all over Canada, but for some reason NS feels it’s necessary! Kind of like shipping all the offshore oil and gas to US instead of NL and the Maritimes. Shouldn’t we get that?! It’s a dictatorship is what it is. If it was a democracy, don’t you think we would have had our say in what we thought of NAFTA? That’s what NAFTA is, take all the canadian resources and ship them to the US, then buy them back at a more extravagant price. Don’t you think the Canadian people should have had a say on what happens to their resources?!
Actually Coyotex, NSP is privately owned by Emera, and is only regulated by the province who says they are allowed to keep the monopoly they have. I wish it were a crown corporation, that might give the province and the people a little more say in how our power is generated. As it is now, wind farms and other providers of clean energy have to sell the power to NSP first and then NSP sells it to us. It would be nice if the province stripped NSP of its monopoly and let the clean power providers sell to Nova Scotians directly. We need either publically owned utilities or competition between providers, either way, the monopoly NSP has is allowing them to charge us more and more for a service that seems to be getting worse and worse.
Miles, while i agree with this, “NSP is privately owned by Emera”, I worked for them for a while so I know that, but this statement, “regulated by the province who says they are allowed to keep the monopoly they have.” not only tells me that NS regulates it, it tells me that NS acts as the big bad Italian mob that you have to pay them a certain protection fee. NS wants to keep that monopoly so that can charge whatever they want to the people. I have yet to see that province put a stop to price hiking by emera, which in term proves the fact that NS somewhat owns a share in Emera, or otherwise this wouldn’t be happening. Aside from that, I disagree with the carbon tax idea since all it’s going to do is tax us more and put our prices up for everything. It’s nothing but a money grab for the government. The high cost of fuel is deterrent enough for anyone to refrain from excessive use.