There are good ways to make life more affordable for Canadians. Cutting the carbon tax isn’t one of them
There are good ways to make life more affordable for Canadians. Cutting the carbon tax isn’t one of them
There are better ways to improve affordability, such as policies to reduce housing, child care and other major costs of living
Whenever I hear politicians propose to cut the carbon price, I can’t help but think back to my childhood growing up with divorced parents.
On the rare occasions my dad took me for weekends, he would offer me candy and let me stay up late.
“Why can’t you be more like him?” I’d yell after returning home as my mom made me do my homework, eat vegetables and go to bed on time.
So it is with proponents of Axe the Tax. They offer us candy, when the federal government, like my mom, expects us to live responsibly.
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But a politician’s promise that pollution can be free is no more realistic than my childish fantasy that I could live on candy alone.
We are all entangled in an energy system that helps and harms our children. While it enables us to taxi our kids around, and keep them warm, it also poisons the air they breathe, evaporates the water they need to drink and burns the forests in which they play.
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To preserve summers without smoke, winters when our kids can ski, water they can drink and forests and wildlife with which they can live in awe.
That’s why we pay for our pollution.
This dude gets it. We need to do so much more, but walking back the carbon tax is a terrible idea.
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We could be doing a lot more to fight climate change than the carbon tax. Canada extracts and exports A LOT of fossil fuels. We also have a car dependant nation which is a carbon intensive form of transportation compared to rail, transit, walking or cycling. We have a lot of rural areas that still depend on wood or heating oils which are both carbon intensive heat sources.
We need to do A LOT more than the carbon tax if we want smoke free summers and healthy ecosystems. The carbon tax is just a tax on life if we dont provide less carbon intensive options for people to use.
BUT saying "we can do more" in no way means we should do it all or do nothing. I'm sure you agree with that, but this type of statement has the feel of "the carbon tax is pointless, let's not do it"
There is always more that can be done, but the effects of the carbon tax go well beyond it being a “tax on life”.
Take for example Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario. They’ve been undergoing a major transformation from using constantly-burning coal to an Electric Arc Furnace — and they specifically call out carbon tax savings as one of the projects drivers.
That’s but one story of industry putting the investments into greener technologies to save from having to pay the carbon levy. I wish the media spent more time talking about such projects, because the levy is working.
You know what I love most about the levy? It’s effectively optional. I can’t opt out of making an income (not being born rich and not wanting to live under a vow of poverty), but I can opt out of generating carbon. We’ve been having the carbon discussion for 30 years now (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change came out in 1992!), and at least some of us were paying attention and made a plan to decarbonize our lifestyles during the last three decades. And for everyone who has, the Carbon Levy might as well not really exist. If you don’t burn, you don’t pay. Simple as that.
I don’t get people’s criticism about this.
My friend tried to turn me against carbon tax by pointing out that I’m being taxed for keeping my home warm.
I told him, I don’t have to pay that tax if I upgrade to electric heating. And this is exactly what is good about it, it incentivizes someone like me to make an investment in electric heating.
The electric heat in this province comes from coal and natural gas. that's most provinces, actually.
86% of electricity in Ontario is renewable.
That stat borders on being somewhat dishonest.
The three most populous Provinces in Canada (Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia) each have over 90% green power generation, either via hydroelectricity or via nuclear power. Manitoba likewise produces 97% of its electricity from hydroelectric sources.
Those four Provinces have a population of roughly 31 million people. Canada has a total population of just over 39 million — meaning “most provinces actually” only accounts for 20% of Canadians. 80% of Canadians get their electricity from 85+% green sources. By total capacity, nearly 70% of all electrical generation in Canada is from green sources, and thus “electric heat” for the vast majority of Canadians is not from coal and natural gas.
Take for example Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie Ontario. They’ve been undergoing a major transformation from using constantly-burning coal to an Electric Arc Furnace — and they specifically call out carbon tax savings as one of the projects drivers.
That's a great example. Thank you for linking to it. I'm saving this for my next social media rant.
Agreed.
The carbon tax is just a tax on life if we dont provide less carbon intensive options for people to use.
Again, I agree. I have few positive things to say about our current federal government, but they have introduced incentives that would move people off carbon intensive heating options. From what I've read, even the ridiculous heating oil carve out for maritime voters came with a generous and well designed package of incentives to get off heating oil.
There's no question that we should be doing more, but doing less is a ridiculous suggestion.
Thanks to the Federal government and a provincial government being a good partner (PEI) I was able to move to an EV and heat pumps over the last few years.
Thanks for posting that. I agree with all the other commenters saying we need to do more, but we also need to support what is being done now.
I'm not endorsing the federal liberals with that statement, I'm saying all parties need to provide effective climate policy.