# Carbon Tax?



## a_majoor (9 Jun 2008)

Since the idea of a spring election has come and gone, let's look at one of the issues that is supposed to define the electoral debate at some uncertain future time. Garth Turner seems to believe that the Liberals will offer a big income tax cut in exchange for a carbon tax, but while a permanent income tax cut is indeed a good thing, Steve Janke deconstructs how the Carbon Tax will actually play out in Canada:

http://stevejanke.com/archives/266245.php



> *Stephane Dion's carbon tax details revealed -- permanent income tax cuts!*
> Monday, June 09, 2008 at 11:57 AM
> 
> What we've all been waiting for -- the definitive explanation of just how Stephane Dion's carbon tax is going to work.
> ...



Of course, allowing energy prices to move with the market will do an awful lot to change behaviours (the supposed rational for the Carbon Tax), while permanent tax cuts can be delivered by _*any*_ government; all they have to do is prioritise their spending on their Constitutional or Provincial mandate, eliminate programs and spending that does not fall within the mandate (narrowly defined) and pass on the savings to the taxpayer.


----------



## Flip (10 Jun 2008)

Hmmmm,

I recently "fought" a pitched battle on CBC's website comments on this subject.
It, sadly devolved into a test of wills, check your wits at the door ,please.

The Lieberman-Warner (US) bill got withdrawn after very little debate.
Ken Livingstone is no longer the mayor of London and even PM Browne is reconsidering carbon taxes in the UK.  Rudd's government is feeling heat and several European governments, er..... have problem.

It would be soooo Canadian (liberal) to bring in carbon taxes when the rest of the world "zags" and then bring in fuel subsidies.......  ;D


----------



## Kirkhill (10 Jun 2008)

Flip said:
			
		

> .... Rudd's government is feeling heat and several European governments, er..... have problem.



I'm getting a chuckle out of this one -



> Rudd calls for OPEC oil boost
> June 08, 2008 10:17am
> 
> THE Rudd Government says only OPEC can help reduce petrol prices by increasing the supply of oil to countries, including Australia.....“OPEC need to open the production lines to a greater extent, increase global oil supply.
> ...



http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23830419-29277,00.html

And this geezer got elected on a Pro-Kyoto ticket and joined in the cavalcade of Goriacs dissing Bush at Bali, along with our own Dion.  Now he wants Bush to put more pressure on the Saudis to pump more oil.....It is just too good.

Right up there with the Branson Bio-Fuel Famine.


----------



## RangerRay (10 Jun 2008)

In a few short weeks, we'll be trying this insanity out here in BC.  I'll let you know how it works!  :


----------



## Kirkhill (10 Jun 2008)

Ranger - I'm ducking and running.  Selling up in Aldergrove and moving to Alberta.


----------



## Brad Sallows (20 Jun 2008)

A tax on pollution outputs stands on its own merits: a cost charged for use of "the commons".

The plan described in today's news is not a simple "pay new charges passed on to consumers in one hand, receive tax cut in the other" as Dion would like to spin it.  Some of the "cuts" are targeted tax credits, which is to say, public spending.  (When governments pay benefits to selected groups out of general revenues, that's a spending program, not a tax cut.)  Also, it's not clear yet that the value of the cuts and handouts adds up to the expected tax take; if that is so, I take it to mean that the Liberals are trying to sneak in a revenue buffer to increase spending, because they collectively have the brain power and sufficient people to do the arithmetic to make it truly revenue-neutral.

In an ideal world, a pollution tax increase mirrored by income tax decreases would be a good thing.  Over what you are taxed, you have no power of discretion.  For what you spend of your own money, you have the power to choose whether to change your spending habits.  This would be a "win" for the individual; and, to the extent some people might choose to reduce their polluting behaviours (and expenses), a "win" for "the commons".


----------



## larry Strong (20 Jun 2008)

Let me see if I have this correct. We get a 1 - 1.5% tax break and the costs passed on by the industries, and taxes on electricity and heating fuels go how high? Were is the neutrality in that?


----------



## Zell_Dietrich (20 Jun 2008)

I’m not a fan of excise taxes.  Not for any good reason, I just don’t like them.  But, as much as I don’t like them,  I know they are useful.  Governments use the tax code to encourage economic activity they want and discourage activity they don’t want.  I think of the super extra taxes placed on cigarettes, and tax breaks for hybrid cars.

There is a special tax credit you get if you buy new manufacturing equipment for use in the Atlantic provinces and the Gaspe region; there is also a tax penalty if you set up a “corporation” for no reason but to pas less in taxes. (well not so much of a penalty, but a ‘correction calculation’ to make sure you’re paying the proper amount)

Companies are in the business of making money; they don’t need to worry about anything else.  Governments have many, sometimes conflicting, focuses. This is usually the reason they do things so poorly, and frankly come up with solutions that obviously were “arrived by committee”.

Let’s say I start up, own and operate a house painting company.  Because I’m a savvy business man I know how to cut corners, instead of spending the gas money on driving out to the municipal hazardous waste site every time I get rid of paint/paint covered materials, I simply make sure no one is looking and I toss it into the sewer system. Instead of dealing with the cost of operating my business, I “externalise it”.  I make more money, the government gets more in income taxes, “consumers pay less” (well the price is set by the market) what could be better?

Unfortunately,  the toxic paint waste I’ve been pouring into the sewer went straight to the local beach and now the businesses along the beach are suffering a sharp drop in business because people don’t want to swim with the dead fishes and get a rash.  They lobby the local government for a cleanup, which will cost a few million, but that cost is spread over the entire town, over a couple of years.

It would have been way cheaper if I’d just dealt with the waste properly in the first place.  It would have been better for everyone, including myself, if I’d been properly motivated to reduce my waste and dispose of it properly.

This is an extremely simple example, but the model does hold.  Remember acid rain?  Now most polluters are required to have scrubbers.

The carbon tax is an attempt to assign a cost to pollution. This lets the innovators and entrepreneurs in the market find ways to perform the same services while producing less pollution. If they can reduce their costs, they’ll have an edge over their competitors and market forces take over. Even if they are competitive, they still have an incentive to reduce their emissions because it means savings for the company.

I don’t really care if the tax is revenue neutral. The Grits are saying that low income earners will see a reduction in income taxes… etc.  Right on – I’m not a high income earner, nor am I a transportation company. If the tax cut I get will be equal to or greater than the increase in prices, that is a perk; I still see the tax holding a benefit. Maybe not for me, but for my children... which I'm not having.


----------



## George Wallace (20 Jun 2008)

OK!  I have had enough of this BS.  I am already taxed at about 75% on Gasoline as is.  I pay a special Tax on the Tires for my vehicle.  I pay a special tax to dispose of the oil from an oil change.  It is driving me to drink, and that is taxed at about the 75% level too.  Even this computer is being taxed.  I pay extra for Hydro, because the Government mismanaged it over the years and has added extra Taxes in the ways of extra fees.  I am taxed for my water and sewer and garbage.  I pay School Taxes.  I pay GST and PST.  There is a tax on food I buy at a restaruant.  My RSP will be taxed when I draw it.  My clothes are taxed.  My coffin is taxed.  My property and grave site are taxed.  Is there anything that isn't already Taxed, or even taxed on taxes.

I suggest that the Government Nationalize everything.  All Supermarkets will be converted into giant "All Ranks Mess Halls" and everyone will no longer have to go shopping to fill their fridges and freezers; they just go into the Mess Hall and eat "all you can eat" whenever they want.  The Beer Store and Liquor Store would be free, but limited to one visit a day.  Bars would be free.  All your wages would be paid to the Gov't as Taxes.  No matter if you worked for the Government as a member of the CF or a Civil Servant, or if you worked for Esso or Nortel; you would be able to get your food at these Mess Halls, fill up your car at the Nationalized Gas stations for free, pick up your liquor for the day for free, live in your house for free, etc.............Christ we might as well as we are being taxed to death.

<end Rant>

 ;D


----------



## Edward Campbell (20 Jun 2008)

The part I'm enjoying is that Celine Stéphane Dion’s message is that “we’re going to be *green* by not taxing the SUV drivers but making senior citizens freeze in the dark by taxing heating oil and electricity generated by coal, natural gas, etc.” Way to go, Celine Stéphane; that’s a great message; a real vote getter!


----------



## GAP (20 Jun 2008)

Dion's whole "Carbon Tax" plan falls into the category of "The Cheque is in the Main - Trust Me", and other similar epitaphs......this is so transparently a gussied up taxgrab, I will be flabbergasted is anyone really falls for it......

THE VOTER IS NOT THAT STUPID!!!.......yuh think?


----------



## Danjanou (20 Jun 2008)

GAP said:
			
		

> THE VOTER IS NOT THAT STUPID!!!.......yuh think?



One would hope, however Canadian political history would often suggest otherwise.  :


----------



## Flip (20 Jun 2008)

A few thoughts come to mind...... ;D

It seems to be a great Liberal tradition to attack tax anything that seems to be attracting a lot of money.  George went down a list and I have to agree, if it appears you've got some disposable income thay want a "piece".

I recall fondly how the NDPs inheritance tax turned out.  It was withdrawn late in the election cycle when to Layton's astonishment, nobody like the idea. I told my local NDP candidate to get off my front step.... 

As for the Liberals, the effing bobblehead! ( Dion )
Having no idea how people outside his circle thinks, he assumes that everyone has magically forgotten about how the gun registry was supposed to fight all kinds of evil and for the low low price of only two million dollars.

He also assumes we have forgotten about the National Energy Program. :rage:
In Alberta there are shrines and alters where revenge is sworn in stone and blood.

I can also remember Jean Cretien saying "Canadians are too rich". Makes you wonder who he was working for, doesn't it?

In the Industrialized world energy = economic growth.
Another inflationary force will not provide any more incentive than already exists.
Just inflation, and all of it's risks. ( My opinion )

I would observe, as Mr Harper is from Alberta, we have our revenge. >


----------



## X-mo-1979 (20 Jun 2008)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> OK!  I have had enough of this BS.  I am already taxed at about 75% on Gasoline as is.  I pay a special Tax on the Tires for my vehicle.  I pay a special tax to dispose of the oil from an oil change.  It is driving me to drink, and that is taxed at about the 75% level too.  Even this computer is being taxed.  I pay extra for Hydro, because the Government mismanaged it over the years and has added extra Taxes in the ways of extra fees.  I am taxed for my water and sewer and garbage.  I pay School Taxes.  I pay GST and PST.  There is a tax on food I buy at a restaruant.  My RSP will be taxed when I draw it.  My clothes are taxed.  My coffin is taxed.  My property and grave site are taxed.  Is there anything that isn't already Taxed, or even taxed on taxes.
> 
> I suggest that the Government Nationalize everything.  All Supermarkets will be converted into giant "All Ranks Mess Halls" and everyone will no longer have to go shopping to fill their fridges and freezers; they just go into the Mess Hall and eat "all you can eat" whenever they want.  The Beer Store and Liquor Store would be free, but limited to one visit a day.  Bars would be free.  All your wages would be paid to the Gov't as Taxes.  No matter if you worked for the Government as a member of the CF or a Civil Servant, or if you worked for Esso or Nortel; you would be able to get your food at these Mess Halls, fill up your car at the Nationalized Gas stations for free, pick up your liquor for the day for free, live in your house for free, etc.............Christ we might as well as we are being taxed to death.
> 
> ...



George
Sounds like what many people joined up to fight doesnt it?


----------



## Cdn Blackshirt (20 Jun 2008)

Problem #1:  Any policy that's based on a lie, is not a good policy.  AGW is a flat-out scam.  Ergo, trying to sell me anything on the basis of "it's going to reduce my carbon footprint" will not only not get my support, but will immediately piss me off.

Problem #2:  The economics of the tax policy is stupid.  If you tax companies WHO EXPORT, you cannot count on increased domestic demand (supposedly because of our lower income tax rates) to offset uncompetitiveness in foreign markets.  In short, I promise you this will kill jobs.

Problem #3:  I can guarantee you this will require an additional cumbersome, expensive addition to our bureaucracy which is exactly the wrong direction we should be going in.  

The blinding stupidity demonstrated by some of those on the Left (not to say the Right are all geniuses) continues to astound me.  Bunch of friggin' clowns....



Matthew.


----------



## Zell_Dietrich (20 Jun 2008)

Flip said:
			
		

> I would observe, as Mr Harper is from Alberta, we have our revenge. >



I'm from Alberta,  I've seen the shrines to vengeance for the National Energy Program.  And not to nit pick but Stephen Harper was born in Toronto and moved to Alberta. ( http://www.conservative.ca/EN/1002 )

The details have just been released,  why is everyone here saying it is a scam?


----------



## foresterab (20 Jun 2008)

Not to mention that this plan will affect the following:

Yukon Territories
Northwest Territories
British Columbia
Alberta
Saskatchewan
Manitoba (yes there is oil there)
Ontario (first wells in Canada are around Sarnia)
Quebec (gaspe penninsula and the shale gas plays)
Nova Scotia
Newfoundland and Labrador

People focus on Alberta due to the oilsands and number of wells.  But looking accross the country there are alot of other jurisdictions that will also be heavily affected.  Just ask BC, Sask. and Nfld/NS how pleased they'd be to loose their energy revenues.


----------



## a_majoor (20 Jun 2008)

Zell_Dietrich said:
			
		

> The details have just been released,  *why is everyone here saying it is a scam?*



Short answer is: *because it is.* 

1. The "justification" for a carbon tax is based on a falsehood (and indeed the low temperatures this year are a far stronger piece of evidence for solar activity driving the planetary climate [the Sun is entering a period of reduced activity which is very similar to observations taken during the "Little Ice Age"]).

2. The so called revenue neutrality is also a falsehood, simply look at the proposed amount of revenue gained by the new tax vs the amount income taxes are supposed to drop: there is a difference of several billion dollars and it is not on "our" side of the ledger.

3. Since energy is so fundamental to our economy and way of life (we live in a cold climate and in a land area second only to Russia), making energy more expensive will have vast ripple effects through the economy. These ripples will also have second and third order effects throughout the globe, if our economy tanks or energy becomes prohibitively expensive in Canada what would happen to our number one trade partner, the United States? What about China, suddenly deprived of a major market for widgets or a source of raw materials?

4. Tanking our economy through higher taxes would also undermine the very tax base most of Canada's governmental and social programs depend on. If our education and heath care systems are so bad now despite the billions lavished on them, what will happen when those billions are gone?

5. Ref 4; what sort of steps do you think a government facing steeply falling revenues and collapsing social and economic order will take to remain in power. What forms of society have arisen from these conditions in the past?

The bottom line is Carbon taxes and other "Green" initiatives are mostly driven by a desire to expand the powers of government for the self aggrandizing of politicians and bureaucrats. They cannot create wealth, but they can certainly *take* wealth and enjoy the powers of directing other people's wealth to satisfy their and their client or patron's aims.


----------



## RangerRay (20 Jun 2008)

Meanwhile, we here in BC will be tagged teamed by both Campbell and Dion with this stupid tax!


----------



## Kirkhill (21 Jun 2008)

Nobody is going to confuse me with a Liberal shill but I feel that this Carbon Tax proposal needs to be put in perspective.

The proposal is for a tax of $10/Tonne of Carbon rising to $40/Tonne.  That equates to a penny a kilogramme rising to 4 cents a kilogramme.

A litre of gas weighs 0.73 kg.
Gasoline is 87% Carbon by weight
Therefore a litre of gas contains 0.64 kg of Carbon.
Therefore a litre of gas will rise in price 0.64 cents rising to 2.56 cents.

That won't break the bank.

On the other hand, like so many other initiatives of Stephane it will not only be invisible, it will be ineffective.

The market is creating and absorbing much higher changes in costing than is being proposed here.  

This ineffective, invisible tax will be buried by the invisible hand.


----------



## Bert (21 Jun 2008)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> Short answer is: *because it is.* ...
> 
> The bottom line is Carbon taxes and other "Green" initiatives are mostly driven by a desire to expand the powers of government for the self aggrandizing of politicians and bureaucrats. They cannot create wealth, but they can certainly *take* wealth and enjoy the powers of directing other people's wealth to satisfy their and their client or patron's aims.



I quite agree.  The difficulties of peak oil, supply and demand, and resource competition are here.  We've 
known about these issues for decades however.  The carbon tax appears to be a ambiguous reaction rather 
than real action to confront the issue of energy transition.  

Its hard to fault the government as any action to promote a direction of energy use or alternate technology 
will be highly criticized by those with their own agendas including the public.   Note the recent auto 
eco-rebate program http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2008/02/27/4880561-cp.html  , the debate over
the "hydrogen highway" and associated technologies, bio-fuels, etc.   Governments seem allow the marketplace 
to determine the future and waffle by adding a potential carbon tax.  It seems to add chaos to the mix when 
people want to know what will happen to oil, when there may be a stable transition to something else, and what 
should they do.  

Not a lot of leadership right now.


----------



## Old and Tired (21 Jun 2008)

Kirkhill

Your premise is not bad, but the underlying math doesn't take the burning of complex hydrocarbon compounds into account or the fact that the tax isn't based on the amount of carbon contained in the fuel, but rather how much carbon. and related compounds  are produced by burning that fuel.

1 litre of Gasolene does contain appro 64% carbon compounds by mass, however it produces approx 5 times that mass in direct and indirect associated carbon compounds.  Thats what you would be paying the carbon tax on.


----------



## Kirkhill (21 Jun 2008)

So is it a Carbon Tax or a Carbon Dioxide Tax?  12 vs 44 (CO2) or 12 vs 26 (CO)?

Having said that, even at a 5:1 exchange rate .64 cents becomes 3 cents and 2.5 cents becomes 12 cents.  My local gas station is bouncing by more than 20 cents a liter on a daily basis.

Having said that though, I fully agree with those that say it is all about generating funds to play with while Harper goes out of his way to reduce the amount of "monopoly money" to play with.

And I don't like paying taxes.


----------



## GAP (21 Jun 2008)

This whole scheme of Dion's has little if anything to do with the environment, he could care less......but it sure creates a 15 Billion pocket to fund all the daycare/pharmacare/social poverty programs and et al that he can base he election campaign on....


----------



## Kirkhill (21 Jun 2008)

GAP said:
			
		

> This whole scheme of Dion's has little if anything to do with the environment, he could care less......but it sure creates a 15 Billion pocket to fund all the daycare/pharmacare/social poverty programs and et al that he can base he election campaign on....



Agreed


----------



## Flip (21 Jun 2008)

Was there ever any doubt?  ;D


----------



## Kirkhill (21 Jun 2008)

Flip said:
			
		

> Was there ever any doubt?  ;D




Nane at a' ye cheeky blighter.


----------



## Edward Campbell (21 Jun 2008)

*IF* you feel there is a need to change Canadians’ behaviour with regard to how much carbon they burn and how much CO2 they put into the atmosphere then a carbon tax is a good tool.

It is a _*’good’*_ tax in the sense that it is a consumption tax so:

•	Many Canadians have some personal discretion re: how much they pay (that’s the changed behaviour bit); and

•	It does not penalize savings and investment.

Like all consumption taxes there has to be some mechanism to provide relief (normally refunds on income tax and/or periodic rebate cheques à la he GST) for the working poor – unfortunately that means the idle, counterproductive and undeserving poor get a rebate too, but that’s another issue.

But a carbon tax is only a *’good’* tax to the degree that it is universal – everyone pays the same tax every time they cause some carbon to be burned or some CO2 to be pumped into he atmosphere – that means that gas, for example, gets taxed over and over and over again – when it is pumped (especially when it is tar sands oil) when it is refined, when it is transported (either by pipelines (which use power which might be generated by burning carbon) or by tanker or truck) and, finally, when it is burned to produce electricity or to power a car.  It is possible, à la the GST, to rebate the tax to everyone except the end user after the fact – doing that only makes the tax moderately not-so-good.

In that regard Celine Stéphane Dion’s proposal is for a *’bad’* tax – Stephan Harper is not too far of base when it calls it insane. Dion’s tax has little to do with changing behaviour with regard to carbon/emissions and everything to do with creating a (false) _green_ image and buying the votes of SUV drivers and soccer moms living East of Saskatchewan by suggesting that he will “screw” Alberta (and Saskatchewan) because they are ‘rich.’ That always goes down well with a substantial minority of Canadians that, broadly, ought not to be allowed to reproduce itself- but that’s another topic, too.

In any sensible system a big, broad carbon tax, needed because you believe there is a pressing need to change Canadians’ behaviour regarding carbon/emission, needs to be accompanied by some sort of emissions trade system – to allow industrial sectors that cannot change heir behaviour cheaply, easily and/or quickly to buy ‘credits’ from those who can, and by some R&D spending and subsidies to find or implement ways to avoid e.g. CO2 emissions.

Dion’s proposal has a bit about R&D but next to nothing about emission trading – it is weak and ill-conceived and badly targeted because it is full of exemptions which make it nothing but a vote buying mechanism. Just the sort of thing we have been used to with Liberals for 45 years now.


----------



## Cdn Blackshirt (21 Jun 2008)

Run the hypothetical of a company looking to set-up a new refinery in Canada or the USA for oil sands bitumen and you'll start to see the abject stupidity of said tax proposal.


Matthew.


----------



## a_majoor (22 Jun 2008)

No need to look at hypotheticals:

http://stevejanke.com/archives/267171.php



> *Carbon tax: Letting Halifax airport crumble away*
> Sunday, June 22, 2008 at 08:20 AM Comments: 11Previous Post
> Peter Duffy, writing in The Chronicle Herald, suggests that keeping the runways at Halifax's international airport in good condition is a waste of time.  Fuel prices means fewer flights.
> 
> ...



If a major city, indeed a _Provincial capital_ is going to be abandoned, its transportation infrastructure crumbling and access to markets and resources circumscribed, how will that work out for the vast majority of Canadians who dont live in major metropolitan regions. For that matter, how will the workers in the major cities (Montreal, Toronto, Vancouover) get access to _their_ markets and resources if the hinterlands become fallow like the future version of Halifax?


----------



## Bruce Monkhouse (22 Jun 2008)

This scheme will give Canadians a personal tax break in the same way that the tire tax and the gas taxes have given us better roads.......


----------



## SeaKingTacco (22 Jun 2008)

I must admit that I am rather more in favour of consumption taxes than income taxes.

This carbon tax, however, is a shambles.  It will institute a consumption tax that will filter to every consumer (probably multiplying at each level); will affect exporters ability to export competitive and to boot, we will still have an income tax (just slightly less of one...).  If Dion came out and said that the Liberals would altogether abolish income taxes of all type and focus only on consumption taxes (of which which a carbon tax is one), I might be interested.  In the mean time- I intend to vote Conservative.

Stegner- are you going to defend this mess?


----------



## ScottSA (23 Jun 2008)

Well, given that Liberals are promoting this nonsense with the claim that the tax is designed to "change behaviours," and that it's either pain now or more pain later, I think this will sound just peachy on an election brochure:

"We promise pain and behaviour modification through higher taxes.  Elect us!"

Good timing too...wait till gas prices go through the roof, and then ride to the rescue by hiking them some more, just as serious scientific questions about the validity of Anthropomorphic Global Warming claims begin to bubble up through the grant funding lock.


----------



## YZT580 (23 Jun 2008)

Want to see the future with Dion's plans then come to Europe.  The ability to pay bills such as daycare etc. suddenly vanished with carbon credit schemes. People are scrambling to find alternative sources of income and it aint purdy.  I think it was Linda from the Toronto Sun who stated that in the long run there is only one person paying taxes: that's you.  Whether it comes out of your front pocket, your jacket pocket or your hip pocket it is still your pocket.  If a corporation is paying a carbon tax, it isn't coming out of his profit, it is added to the price.  Now how does your CDN widget with a 5% carbon tax compete with the one from Beijing, made with labour that costs only 20% of our costs and without another 5% carbon tax.  Goodbye CDN widget.  Vote NO!


----------



## Edward Campbell (23 Jun 2008)

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s _Globe and Mail_ is a report of a survey conducted on the ‘_Good Grey Globe_’s’ behalf by the respected Gartner Group:

http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080623.wrcsuite23/BNStory/Business/home?cid=al_gam_mostview


> Green begins to fade
> *As costs rise, business cools to carbon tax, such as that outlined in Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion's plan*
> 
> RICHARD BLACKWELL
> ...


----------



## old medic (23 Jun 2008)

Read this yesterday and thought I would post a link here:

http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Goldstein_Lorrie/2008/06/22/5953001-sun.php

t's about votes, not Mother Earth
Politicians care about elections, not global warming

By LORRIE GOLDSTEIN 



> Over the past 18 months I've written scores of columns on global warming.
> 
> I've read nine books on the subject so far (six by authors supporting the theory of man-made global warming and the Kyoto accord, three by skeptics).
> 
> ...


----------



## a_majoor (24 Jun 2008)

The author nails the real problem of the so called Carbon Tax: who controls the money:

http://www.lfpress.com/cgi-bin/publish.cgi?x=letters&p=18602&s=letters



> 'Revenue neutral' not the issue
> Since it's going to keep coming up, let's clarify what a "revenue neutral" carbon tax means.
> 
> Liberal Leader Stephane Dion says if he gets into power, the carbon tax he imposes will be "revenue neutral."
> ...


----------



## YZT580 (24 Jun 2008)

www.ottawasun.com/News/Columnists/Weston_Greg/2008/06/24/5967561-sun.html  Greg Weston is not particularly noted for supporting anything that the tories say.  But in this case, he appears to demonstrate rather convincingly, who is going to produce the 15 billion and who is going to collect.  Can you say "mon Dieu"


----------



## GAP (24 Jun 2008)

It's a tax grab.......and people are excited about it, thrilled even......................stupid.


----------



## Flip (24 Jun 2008)

This popped up in the Globe and Mail.



> Carbon cuts are just a fantasy
> MARGARET WENTE
> 
> From Tuesday's Globe and Mail
> ...



Gap - I think I disagree.....Activists are excited about it. Why not? They "win"  :

There is a pattern emerging of a carbon tax revolt, or at least a political backlash. Dion has placed himself on the wrong side of this one for sure.  ;D


----------



## Edward Campbell (25 Jun 2008)

These two stories (actually a news report and a column), reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s _National Post_ and _Financial Post_ respectively (two semi-independent newspapers in one ‘bundle’) illustrate the _green_ dilemma.

First he _National Post_ news story:

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=610810


> Obama's fight against 'dirty oil' could hurt oil sands
> 
> Sheldon Alberts, Washington Correspondent, Canwest News Service
> 
> ...



And now the _Financial Post_ column:

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=611010


> Pander to voters at peril, U.S. told
> *Canada's energy sector may look for new markets*
> 
> Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post
> ...



Here is the problem that Dion, Obama and the _green_ community refuse to acknowledge: petroleum consumption (and, consequently, production) is on the rise in Asia and it will continue to grow, for decades, *no matter what the impact on the environment may be*. Asians – Chinese, Indians, Indonesians, Malaysians, Filipinos, Thais, etc – are not insensitive to the environment but they are *determined* to enjoy the (material) benefits of their efforts (the fruits of their labours and savings, if you like) and they need petroleum to do that. While America is, by far, our ‘best’ (closest, easiest to service) market, it is certainly not the only one. A new ‘trans-mountain’ pipeline expansion is under construction now, see: this _Edmonton Journal_ report. If Americans don’t want the oil it will sell well in Asia. Canadians who are concerned with the high environmental costs of meeting Asia’s surging demand must consider how to produce oil from tar sands at a lower environmental cost because it will still need to be produced.


----------



## observor 69 (25 Jun 2008)

More along the same lines but by a journalist I always look forward to reading:

Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act .

Carbon cuts are just a fantasy
MARGARET WENTE 

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER — I have bad news for Stéphane Dion. Out here in B.C., the people are revolting. Gordon Campbell's much-applauded carbon tax was pretty popular in February. But now, as people are being hammered by record gas prices, the enthusiasm has cooled. A new poll says a whopping 59 per cent of British Columbians now oppose the tax - and it hasn't even kicked in yet.

Beware the fickle voters. Everyone loves carbon taxes, until they have to pay them. But there's a much bigger and more serious reason for people to be skeptical of carbon taxes, cap-and-trade plans, green shifts, offset schemes and all the other policy proposals that have fuelled such mind-numbing debate. The reason is that they won't work. And you don't have to be a climate-change denier to see why.

I know, I know. Mr. Dion likes to tell us the planet's fate is in our hands. Sorry! It's not. It's a big old world out there, and most of the six billion people in it are scrambling to use more energy, not less.

The dimensions of the problem are hard to overstate. As we demand more wind, solar, geothermal and biofuels, the other five-odd billion demand more oil, coal and natural gas. As we debate the niceties of carbon taxes versus cap-and-trade, global energy demand is projected to increase another 60 per cent by 2030.
 Despite our good intentions, we can't do anything about it. Last year, China clearly overtook the United States as the world's biggest CO2 emitter. It now accounts for two-thirds of the yearly increase in global emissions. China and India will build a new coal generator roughly once a week for the next 25 years. As we ditch our gas-guzzling SUVs, the Chinese are buying 20,000 new cars every day. Two billion people still lack access to electricity. If we try to tell them they can't have it, they'll just laugh at us.

Could we reduce our carbon footprint enough to compensate for all this furious growth? Not a chance. We'd have to repeal air travel, cars and the rest of the 20th century. Global warming is really hard to fix. But don't take it from me.

A recent commentary in Nature, titled Dangerous Assumptions, argues that reducing CO2 emissions over the next century will be far more challenging than we've been led to believe. The authors - climate policy expert Roger Pielke Jr., climatologist Tom Wigley and economist Christopher Green - contend the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has badly overstated our technological ability to cut emissions. The idea that we can regulate our way to a completely new economy is, in Nature's words, "a fairy tale."

A lot of big scientific guns agree. Vaclav Smil, distinguished environment professor at the University of Manitoba, comments, "The speed of transition from a predominantly fossil-fuelled world ... is being grossly overestimated: All energy transitions are multigenerational affairs. Their progress cannot substantially be accelerated either by wishful thinking or by government ministers' fiats." Stanford's Christopher Field writes, "It is hard to see how, without a massive increase in investment, the requisite number of relevant technologies will be mature and available when we need them."

In other words, it will take a massive technological revolution to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions, and anyone who says otherwise is kidding you. It's all very well to say that we ought to lead by example, and do what we can. It's a good thing to start figuring out how we can eventually wean ourselves off fossil fuels. But if all our efforts to regulate carbon amount to scooping sand from the Sahara with a teaspoon, shouldn't we face facts?

"We may have set ourselves down the wrong path when we framed the challenge of mitigating greenhouse gases in terms of reducing emissions," says Mr. Pielke. He says only massive long-term investments in carbon-neutral technologies will do the trick. Keep that in mind during the next eye-glazing round of green debates.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080624.wcowente24/BNStory/specialComment/home


----------



## a_majoor (25 Jun 2008)

Senator Obama may have killed his Presidential asperations right there; how will the American voter react if they are told in forceful terms that the Democratic candidate is willing to cut off America's biggest oil supply (and from a friendly nation to boot), and ensure the US price for gasoline remains well above $4.00 USD/Gal for the length of his administration?

As we should always keep in mind; American voters elect their representatives on *domestic* issues. We have already seen the angry reaction to Stephan Dion's "Carbon Tax" proposals here in Canada; just imagine how similar proposals (or campaign planks with the same end effect i.e. huge increases in energy prices) will play out for the next several months in the United States.


----------



## Flip (25 Jun 2008)

ER,

The proposed nuclear power plant in Northern Alberta is one "solution" to Obama's little dilemna.  

Of note, is also the fact that any shale oil or Coal fuel development in the US has the same "carbon footprint" label.  Also worth noting I believe something like 57% of the trade imbalance is due to energy imports.( I can't remember where I got that )

In short, the Dems are doing their best to put the US on an energy diet.
I'm fairly certain that if Refined Petroleum came to them in a pipeline from heaven the democrats would call it "dirty".


----------



## Kirkhill (25 Jun 2008)

Re the pipelines to the coast - diversification is always a good strategy and as Nigeria, Saudi, Iraq and The Gulf States daily demonstrate nothing says diversification like a salt water port.  It defines fungibility.  Once the product reaches tide water it is available to all-comers.  Venezuela is a similar beneficiary of salt water access.


But speaking of Venezuela, I understand from a Venezuelan engineer of my acquaintance that much of Venezuelan oil is associated with similar deposits to the oil sands but currently they are only exploiting the "free" (ie unbound) oil.  How long does that supply last?  How "Clean" is that?


Is Venezuela a better trading partner than Canada because its "needs" are greater?


----------



## GAP (27 Jun 2008)

Does this clown actually think this will get people (other than Ontario) to support his plan? He's going to tax the hell out of all Canadians to support his social programs but blame Sask and Alberta?

Dion's plan targets oil-rich provinces
Tax to hit Alberta, Saskatchewan hard 
CAROLINE ALPHONSO From Friday's Globe and Mail June 27, 2008 at 4:00 AM EDT
Article Link

TORONTO — Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion says 40 per cent of Canada's carbon emissions come from Alberta and Saskatchewan and the two western provinces will have to do the most to change their habits under his new green plan. But he said it will be good for them - and he's taking that message to the Calgary Stampede next weekend.

"If we do this plan, Alberta and Saskatchewan will be better off 10 years from now than if we don't do this plan," Mr. Dion said. "Their economies will be more diversified, their universities will be at the centre of something big happening around the world, and investments will grow."

He rejected the notion that the two highest polluting provinces having to contend with a greater carbon tax burden could result in Western alienation.

"To do the right thing will be beneficial for them," Mr. Dion told The Globe and Mail's editorial board. "I care about Alberta and Saskatchewan. I know many people who want to do the right thing. Many will know that it will create jobs there - green jobs."
More on link


----------



## larry Strong (27 Jun 2008)

It will be interesting to see what his reception will be like.


----------



## Blindspot (27 Jun 2008)

Martha Hall Findlay is publicly endorsing the Liberal Carbon Tax but she made a half-hearted, unconvincing defense of the policy on the Michael Coren Show. I'd like to know what Ignatief and Rae think about it and if they're all privately licking their chops.


----------



## GAP (28 Jun 2008)

Dion faces carbon-tax backlash in West
BILL CURRY  From Saturday's Globe and Mail June 27, 2008 at 7:40 PM EDT
Article Link

Alberta and Saskatchewan lashed out at Stéphane Dion on Friday, warning their economies would take a major hit under the Liberal Leader's plan to tax carbon emissions.

Saskatchewan, which only recently started to cash in on the oil boom, is particularly hostile to Mr. Dion's proposal. “It's going to dramatically impact upon our economy and we're just not in favour of it in any way,” Saskatchewan Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd said.

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach attacked the Liberal plan at a news conference. “It's going to hurt Alberta,” he said, predicting the province could “take a major hit.”

“I'm also concerned about the rest of Canada, because this effect will flow from coast to coast.”

.....~~~.....

Mr. Boyd, of the conservative Saskatchewan Party, says that political map has a lot to do with Mr. Dion's new policy.

“I think it's clear that Mr. Dion has looked at that in a very crass political way and made the political calculation that there's nothing for him to lose anyway,” Mr. Boyd said. “If he can take some of the wealth from Western Canada where he has no vote support whatsoever and redistribute it to Eastern Canada, he has a better chance of winning the next election.”

.....~~~.....

Radio host John Gormley, a former Tory MP, warned the federal Liberal Leader his idea will be a hard sell in the Prairies. Mr. Gormley said the recent harsh words from Prime Minister Stephen Harper about the plan are resonating. 

“He said you're going to screw the West, were his words, and I think most of us agree with that.”

Mr. Dion's lone Saskatchewan MP, Mr. Goodale, insists the comments from Mr. Gormley and the two provincial governments are out of sync with the reaction he's hearing from voters.

“It's been very measured,” he said. “And in terms of sheer volume, far more positive than negative.”
More on link


----------



## Kirkhill (28 Jun 2008)

I noted earlier that the magnitude of the tax, in my opinion, is not of itself a particular hardship.  However a tax doesn't have to be intolerable to be a rallying point.  The Yankees didn't even drink that much tea, probably making it easier to "symbolically" dump it in the harbour.

I'll be fascinated to watch how this plays out, not just in Alberta and Saskatchewan but also in Manitoba and the "hinterlands" of BC. 

In BC the Vancouver Sun reported about a month ago on the newfound riches coming out of the hinterland of the Northeast.  And that attitude concerning everything east of the Port Mann bridge is common in Vancouver.  Meanwhile the people of the Coal rich Crows Nest Pass head to Lethbridge for shopping and Calgary for medical attention and the oil and gas workers of Fort St John have an easy drive into Edmonton.   Prince Rupert has benefited from northern coal.

In Manitoba Albertan rig workers are finding work drilling new holes in the Brandon area.

Westerners tend to be pretty mobile internally.  The lack of physical barriers mean that Prince Rupert to the Lakehead tends to be seen as just one big community. Vancouver and Victoria are not part of that community in the same way that Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg are.  MacMurray is driving employment all over the area.  Lots of folks are working up north on seasonal contracts or commuting into the area or staying at home and feeding MacMurray with goods and services. And they know where their paychecks come from.

NEP 1 didn't just affect Albertans.  It affected the employment opportunities of all Westerners and resonates amongst many out here.

NEP 2 won't just affect Albertans either.

My curiousity will be in seeing how many seats Dion plans to win east of Port Mann or even in Manitoba.  

As to Newfoundland......Danny must be wondering what to do next.  He doesn't like the deal Harper offered, a choice of what he wanted or what he wanted.  How's the competition shaping up?

And then, beyond all that, there is the reception that another tax will have on a population that is already seeing costs escalating.   Straws and camels.


----------



## Cdn Blackshirt (28 Jun 2008)

Kirkhill said:
			
		

> Re the pipelines to the coast - diversification is always a good strategy and as Nigeria, Saudi, Iraq and The Gulf States daily demonstrate nothing says diversification like a salt water port.  It defines fungibility.  Once the product reaches tide water it is available to all-comers.  Venezuela is a similar beneficiary of salt water access.
> 
> 
> *But speaking of Venezuela, I understand from a Venezuelan engineer of my acquaintance that much of Venezuelan oil is associated with similar deposits to the oil sands but currently they are only exploiting the "free" (ie unbound) oil.  How long does that supply last?  How "Clean" is that?*
> ...



Yep.  It's called the Orinoco Tar Sands....absolutely huge reserve of OOIP (the actual amount is debateable but it's safe to say it's greater than a trillion barrels - how much is recoverable is dependent upon the price of oil).  Sadly it's very low API (less than 10 API which means it actually sinks in water), high asphaltenes and sulpher.  In short, although plentiful, you need to do a tremendous amount of upgrading to it and even then your output mix doesn't yield a high proportion of transportation fuels which is what we're short of.  I haven't seen number of EROEI, but I bet it's high, and I bet it's dirty.  We'll have to see how Petroleos de Venezuela (my apologies to any Spanish speakers if I butchered that) deals with development since the nationalization of a huge portion of the reserve from Exxon....I think Total, Chevron & maybe Statoil instead accepted punitive lease rewrites (sorry, I read that a long time ago on Rigzone or the Oil Drum or something).


Matthew.


----------



## vonGarvin (28 Jun 2008)

The maritime provinces still rely on "carbon heavy" energy to a greater degree than most provinces.  This carbon tax "folly" would adversely affect, IMHO, any Liberal chances this side of Quebec.  I'm fairly certain that Newfoundland and Labrador would also suffer from this so-called "green plan" (there are no targets for reduction of emissions, and if all industry decided that it was better for them to reduce emissions, thus reducing their levies, the government would suddenly be out of cash, thus causing them to re-raise taxes).
In short, M. Dion only sees as far as Thunder Bay in one direction, and Rimouski in the other.


----------



## a_majoor (29 Jun 2008)

Apparently, Mr Dion is trying to emulate Australia, without looking at the factors in play during that election:

http://stevejanke.com/archives/267578.php



> *Selling the carbon tax: Canadian apples and Australian oranges*
> Saturday, June 28, 2008 at 06:32 PM Comments: 5
> Previous Post
> 
> ...


----------



## larry Strong (29 Jun 2008)

The 2 Northern Premiers have said "Non"

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080629/dion_north_080629/20080629?hub=TopStories



> Northern premiers give thumbs down to carbon tax
> Updated Sun. Jun. 29 2008 8:42 AM ET
> 
> CTV.ca News Staff
> ...


----------



## RangerRay (29 Jun 2008)

Here's a really good article from Thursday's _Vancouver Sun_:

<a href="http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=2454f7eb-d8ac-4aab-9453-43d286fc570c&p=1">Link</a>



> *The carbon tax is economic folly*
> It will fuel cost-push inflation and do little to accomplish the environmental goals it was created to meet
> 
> Harvey Enchin, Vancouver Sun
> ...



Article continues on link.


----------



## a_majoor (29 Jun 2008)

Economically speaking, "Revenue Neutrality" is a bit of a misnomer. If the Carbon Tax is revenue neutral, then there are no incentives to change behavior. The other open question is Revenue Neutral for whom? The Taxpayer? Business? Government?

http://hespeler.blogspot.com/2008/06/lie-of-revenue-neutrality.html



> *The Lie of Revenue Neutrality*
> 
> A little less than a year ago John Palmer at EclecEcon had a post on the three most important concepts in economics. While some fools were arguing utility theory and the theory of perfect competition, he argued for opportunity cost. Opportunity cost isn't just basic, econ 101 stuff, it is econ 101, day 1, page 1. It works this way: every time you engage in economic activity (i.e. buy something), you make a choice. I buy this litre of gas or that litre of milk, for instance. It's so simple, and so often misunderstood.
> 
> ...


----------



## RangerRay (29 Jun 2008)

When I first heard of the scheme here in BC, the first thing I thought was "It may be revenue neutral for government, but not for taxpayers who have to use carbon based fuels."

It's a term used to attempt to placate taxpayers.


----------



## DBA (29 Jun 2008)

Kirkhill said:
			
		

> I noted earlier that the magnitude of the tax, in my opinion, is not of itself a particular hardship.  However a tax doesn't have to be intolerable to be a rallying point.  The Yankees didn't even drink that much tea, probably making it easier to "symbolically" dump it in the harbour.



They didn't dump all tea, they dumped East India Company tea. The import tax was on several commodities at first. After protestes it was reduced to just tea. Then the British exempted the East India Company from the tax. This pissed off the colonists and brought the tax issue back to the front burner.

This in some ways shows the problem I have with a carbon tax. The 'revenue neutral' is government wide and not for individual or groups of taxpayers. This means some groups will pay more and some less meaning some are in effect exempt from the tax while others foot the bill and are at a disadvantage.


----------



## 2 Cdo (30 Jun 2008)

GAP said:
			
		

> Mr. Boyd, of the conservative Saskatchewan Party, says that political map has a lot to do with Mr. Dion's new policy.
> 
> “I think it's clear that Mr. Dion has looked at that in a very crass political way and made the political calculation that there's nothing for him to lose anyway,” Mr. Boyd said. “If he can take some of the wealth from Western Canada where he has no vote support whatsoever and redistribute it to Eastern Canada, he has a better chance of winning the next election.”



Finally someone who pointed out the obvious. NEP 2 will not be greeted with open arms out west. Dion will be in for a very rude shock when he travels out there trying to promote his latest idiotic, money grab.


----------



## a_majoor (30 Jun 2008)

2 Cdo said:
			
		

> Finally someone who pointed out the obvious. NEP 2 will not be greeted with open arms out west. Dion will be in for a very rude shock when he travels out there trying to promote his latest idiotic, money grab.



I suspect his motivation for going out west is to portray himself as a "national" party leader, rather than simply the leader of a rump Ontario party. He would gladly sacrifice any and all Liberal party MP's and supporters west of Manitoba if that would ensure he gets the all important Ontario seats. Of course trying to sow confusion in the ranks of the rival Green and NDP parties is a bonus if that can be done at the same time.

Regardless of how the West or Atlantic Canada feels, the battleground for the next election will take place in a small number of seats in Ontario and Quebec. Prime Minister Harper needs to effectively communicate the real impact of these schemes to Ontarians and Quebeckers, many who seem to be convinced they can indeed continue to feed off other parts of Canada without going down with the rest of the ship.


----------



## North Star (30 Jun 2008)

This tax plans represents:

1) An attack on rural lifestyles;
2) An attempt to "wealth shift" from the successful West to the faltering East;
3) A sap to the Lib's urban base.

OK, if you really wanted to be a nutso-Kyoto warrior, you'd tax the hell out of gasoline, not just diesel. Why? Because the elephant in the room in the "green" climate-change debate isn't industry, it's the car in the garage. This is especially true of Canadians in urban areas (the Lib base) because they often have the option of using well-funded (and federally subsidized) public transit. However, if Dion did that the Liberals would be in even worse shape. 

Just food for thought. I'm not an environmentalist in the slightest (I have HUGE doubts about "climate change") but this isn't a green shift - it's an urban vote grab by attacking the lifestyles of people the Libs hate for not voting for them.


----------



## RangerRay (30 Jun 2008)

North Star, I concur.

Here in BC, the BC Liberals and NDP pay lipservice to those of us who live outside the Lower Mainland/southern Vancouver Island areas.  When they need our votes, they tell us how important we are, but when they just need the more populous areas of the southwest BC, they ignore us and implement policies to solve Lower Mainland problems by penalising those of us in the Interior.

Which brings us to our carbon tax we'll be paying tomorrow.  This was announced in February, but only now, the NDP are on the bandwagon opposing this.  I think they are just upset at having not thought of it first.  They are only against it because they see some electoral opportunities east of Hope.

I liked the tax-cutting Premier Campbell of the first term, not this Al Gore kool-aide drinking tree hugger we have in his second term.


----------



## aesop081 (30 Jun 2008)

RangerRay said:
			
		

> I liked the tax-cutting Premier Campbell of the first term, not this Al Gore kool-aide drinking tree hugger we have in his second term.



He wasnt arrested for drinking Kool-Aid.....LOL


----------



## RangerRay (30 Jun 2008)

CDN Aviator said:
			
		

> He wasnt arrested for drinking Kool-Aid.....LOL



Ha!  Good one!  ;D

But he should be for drinking this Kool-Aid, which will destroy our economy like the NDP did in the 90's!


----------



## aesop081 (30 Jun 2008)

RangerRay said:
			
		

> Ha!  Good one!  ;D
> 
> But he should be for drinking this Kool-Aid, which will destroy our economy like the NDP did in the 90's!



Oh i agree with you.


----------



## SeaKingTacco (30 Jun 2008)

> But he should be for drinking this Kool-Aid, which will destroy our economy like the NDP did in the 90's!



Bring it on!  I would dearly love to buy a nice house in Victoria for a couple hundred thousand... once the economy collapses


----------



## KJK (30 Jun 2008)

I'm wondering what would happen if say the federal liberals do get elected, try to ram this carbon tax through and are told by the western premiers and maybe NFLD too that they aren't having any part of it. With M. Dion's lack of backbone, do you think he might back down? I hope it isn't necessary to find out but with him promising all this western money to help out the east I could see this becoming a very scary reality!  

KJK


----------



## Old Sweat (30 Jun 2008)

As PM M. Dion would believe his position has been accepted by the country, and essentially as a weak leader and a non-violent type, he would feel obligated to impose his will to show that he was in charge without understanding the ramifications. (It is my opinion is that is what we have been seeing for the past few months, and it would be likely to continue.)

As for his career, the only thing worse for him than loosing an election badly would be to win one with a minority government. Essentially he would make Jimmy Carter look like Alexander the Great.


----------



## Flip (30 Jun 2008)

> Essentially he would make Jimmy Carter look like Alexander the Great.


 :rofl:

Thanks, I needed that!  

Would he then retire and start building houses for people with too many books?  ;D


----------



## North Star (1 Jul 2008)

Lol...or taking money from Saudis and then predictably trashing Israel....

I mean come on. If you're going to criticize Israel, that's cool. But don't do so after accepting tainted Wahhabist payola!


----------



## a_majoor (2 Jul 2008)

Some premiers have spoken, but look at the legions of the silent......

http://thealbertaardvark.blogspot.com/2008/07/does-anyone-else-find-it-odd.html



> *Does anyone else find it odd...*
> 
> Does anyone else find it odd that not one single reporter has of yet managed to stick a microphone in the face of Danny Williams, Gary Doer, Shaun Graham, Robert Ghiz, David Miller or any mayor from one of Canada's major cities, to ask them their opinions of Dion's carbon tax or how much they figure it will cost those they represent?
> 
> ...


----------



## a_majoor (12 Jul 2008)

Carbon tax is simply "greenwash". Look in particular at the implications for Jennifer Wright's upcoming lawsuit against the Liberals

http://stevejanke.com/archives/268380.php



> *Oops: Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff admits to Liberal greenwashing*
> Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 07:47 AM Previous Post
> 
> Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff has let the cat out of the bag.  Apparently Stephane Dion's carbon tax program is just a big vacuum designed to suck money out of Alberta, pass it through  Liberal government social programs, and put it in the pockets of whomever the Liberals deem worthy of receiving the cash.
> ...


----------



## Zell_Dietrich (12 Jul 2008)

I know the lawsuit has come up a few times here,  so I decided to do a quick look. (  http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/app/cipo/trademarks/search/tmSearch.do?language=eng )

http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/app/cipo/trademarks/search/viewTrademark.do;jsessionid=0000SpCAe7eu1QgjoV6D7iSV68m:1247nfca5?language=eng&fileNumber=1244652&extension=0&startingDocumentIndexOnPage=1

Now if I remember my law class on Intellectual Property - and I should since I have my text book in front of me, the one holding the trademark need only prove that the infringement would likely cause confusion in the marketplace.  In this case confusing a company offering organic coffee and full facility environmental audits might be pressed to show how a phrase used to describe a change in policy of a political party.  

One defence against this suit I can think of is that 'Green Shift' is something that can't be trademarked. I remember someone trying to trademark "That's Hot" http://www.thespeciousreport.com/2005/05050217paris_hilton.html  God help us if someone wants to trademark "Hello".

Edit:
That is to say that "Green Shift" lacks the quality of being "Distinctive". (IMHO)


----------



## a_majoor (12 Jul 2008)

Since the owner of "Green Shift" has already stated how many customers and potential clients have expressed confusion and dismay at the linkage, I would suggest the "ikely cause confusion in the marketplace" bar has already been crossed. The Liberal Party can try it's luck in court, or take down the offending websites, materials and loose the "Green Shift" phrasology and try for an out of court settlement.

One court which they might already have lost in is the court of public opinion...


----------



## a_majoor (24 Jul 2008)

More on where the money is supposed to go (hint: it isn't _you_):

http://conservativeinnewbrunswick.blogspot.com/2008/07/voice-of-association-says-something.html



> Thursday, July 24, 2008
> *Voice of the Association says: Something Fishy about the Liberals Revenue Neutral Scenario*
> 
> I don't write em, I just give them exposure lol. More direct quotes from the Group on the Liberals trying to sell us on their carbon tax system.
> ...



note: something wonky today; go to link for the graphs!


----------



## North Star (26 Jul 2008)

Some right-wing blogger have been pointing out for awhile that Dion's "revenue neutral" tax plan is really an overall tax increase offset with increased subsidies for key Liberal-voter groups, with the odd little credit (not repayed with interest BTW) thrown back at some of the plan's losers. 

I mean, come on. It's the greatest tax-and-grab wrapped in a green leaf that's been floated for awhile. If he really wanted to reduce Canada's Carbon footprint, he should:

a) Not tax heating oil, as it has traditionally been views like groceries: a necessity;
b) Apply a gasoline penalty-tax to automobile owners in urban areas who have access to subsidized public transit; and
c) Phase in the diesel tax in the plan now over 10 years as opposed to 4, to give farmers a chance to retool to more "carbon reduced" farm vehicles, as well as provide them with interest-free loans to retool.

However, that would make him very unpopular where he has seats. I suspect he has decided to tax heating oil as only rural dwellers really use that form of heating due to a lack of infractructure, and he's already written them off to the Cons.

Mind you, I doubt Carbon Dioxide is the problem for climate change. Assuming that climate change is a constant (given the historical record, etc), we need way more reserach to figure out what is the human created "delta" between what is "natural" climate change and what, if anything, we are experiencing. Astronomers are now pointing out that the sun may have more of a role in our climate than climatologists give it credit for. There is much left to examine before we change our whole taxation system on a whim.


----------



## Snafu-Bar (27 Jul 2008)

The part that bugs me about this whole deal is that Dion and his Liberally talented pocket pickers actually think we have money in there to take from us.... :threat:

 Another thing being overlooked is that this carbon tax is a stop gap cash grab and nothing towards an actuall change in behavior needed to fix the problem. Tax the gas, tax the oil, tax the license plates,stickers and vehicle. Yet the technology is readily available to make it clean and green using electric motors. Why not mandate a change in the north american car market forcing a complete outage on combustion engines altogether? The answer always ends up because someone with more money than he could ever spends says so. The only way things will change is if someone with enough balls convices his counterparts around the world to do likewise, then the possibilties will present themselves.  Unfortunately that won't change with everyone treating oil like it was bled from the body of christ himself. I don't expect any changes any time soon, not with people like Dion atleast.

 Cheers.


----------



## aesop081 (27 Jul 2008)

Try living in BC and already having to live with a carbon tax.......




			
				Snafu-Bar said:
			
		

> Yet the technology is readily available to make it clean and green using electric motors.



The electric motor might be clean but the electricity production not so much. Thats just displacing the problem, not solving it.




> Why not mandate a change in the north american car market forcing a complete outage on combustion engines altogether?



Is the NA electrical grid capable of supporting the associated increase in demand ? Methinks not.


----------



## Snafu-Bar (27 Jul 2008)

The electric motor on it's own is just a device awaiting a supply of power to make it run. There are however methods of creating energy from motion through the use of ac/dc generators. Some of the technology emerging to deal with the problems of "recharging from the grid" is to have the car generate the power needed for self sustained travel.

 This link is what technology is coming forward to deal with this bump in the road to evolution.

http://www.explorepub.com/articles/beardon/overunity.html

 An overunity generator in action and the parent co's website, an excellent read.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L84EwOtRc_4
http://www.lutec.com.au/

 Also a youtube search on overunity engines will pull up several clips of what the stuff looks like.

 The possibilties of only having to change your 12 volt car battery as the means of maintaining the power supply needed to power your vehicle make adopting the technology worthy of throwing some money at.

 Cheers.


----------



## SeaKingTacco (28 Jul 2008)

> An overunity generator in action and the parent co's website, an excellent read.



Snafu-bar,

To paraphrase Homer Simpson:

On Army.ca, we follow the laws of Thermodynamics.


----------



## Good2Golf (28 Jul 2008)

Snafu-Bar said:
			
		

> ....This link is what technology is coming forward to deal with this bump in the road to evolution.
> 
> http://www.explorepub.com/articles/beardon/overunity.html
> 
> An overunity generator in action and the parent co's website, an excellent read...



Interesting to note that in Fig.3 of the A-reguaging phase of the motor a the ref, the total phase EMF appears to be at or less than unity, not overunity.  Note the immediate Voltage drop near the end of the first phase ramp down, and the phase lag resulting from a delayed recovery to peak voltage before re-intercepting the linear voltage drop again.  The total enery being "area under the curve", there actually appears to be less overall energy present in the dashed line "overunity/reguaging" mode of the motor.

As SKT and Homer said, we follow the laws of thermodynamics here.  Some website saying it's so, and a youtube vid where you can't appreciably quantify any net generation of energy is nothing more than cheap entertainment on a rainy Monday evening...


----------



## aesop081 (28 Jul 2008)

Good2Golf said:
			
		

> Interesting to note that in Fig.3 of the A-reguaging phase of the motor a the ref, the total phase EMF appears to be at or less than unity, not overunity.  Note the immediate Voltage drop near the end of the first phase ramp down, and the phase lag resulting from a delayed recovery to peak voltage before re-intercepting the linear voltage drop again.  The total enery being "area under the curve", there actually appears to be less overall energy present in the dashed line "overunity/reguaging" mode of the motor.



Are you drunk ?

I have no idea what you just said........

 ;D


----------



## Snafu-Bar (28 Jul 2008)

Well like anything new change is hard to make especially when most are content with staus quo. Many of the clips and experiments being done with the technology is atleast showing promis of finding a viable option for use in something that could help with the carbon output. 

 It was atleast interesting, unlike Dion and his tax plan.


----------



## a_majoor (28 Jul 2008)

Folks hearabouts follow the Second Law of Thermodynamics in this here universe. The Sherriff might call a posse of Maxwell's Deamon's out if youall ain't carefull and keep trying to violate the Law .

Since there have been no observed violations of the Laws of Thermodynamics, claims about "overunity generators" should be taken with the same face value as claims of perpetual motion (which is, in fact, what they are). Electric motors are more efficient in converting electrical power into torque than other types of engines, the problem is each stage in converting chemical, nuclear, solar etc. energy into electrical energy, storing it on board the vehicle and releasing it under control to the motor is another stage where a thermodynamic loss occurs, which means that overall, most electric vehicles are _less_ efficient than internal combustion vehicles when you add it all up!

Now if you have convincing evidence that you or someone has actually created and demonstrated an "overunity generator", then that is a different thing alltogether. What is convincing proof?  *I get a set of plans and build one myself. I test it in my own lab with my own people. Other witnesses that are chosen at random by myself get to watch and verify what has happened, and I publish the results in any forum or journal. Anyone else on Earth can do the same to cross check the results.*

Just as a BTW; there is very good reason to suppose that if violations of the Laws of Thermodynamics were indeed possible, that would result in the end of the Universe; making Carbon taxes somewhat moot at that point!


----------



## Flip (28 Jul 2008)

> Carbon taxes somewhat moot at that point!



I thought they were already!

What the young man wants is a Rube Goldberg Machine!
Now, there's some fine engineering.... ;D


----------



## SeaKingTacco (29 Jul 2008)

> Are you drunk ?
> 
> I have no idea what you just said........



Translation: there ain't no such thing as a free lunch.  At least in this universe.


----------



## RCD (29 Jul 2008)

It's stupid


----------



## a_majoor (7 Aug 2008)

Even Stephan Dion does not know what the Carbon Tax is about. Something to ponder when a Liberal candidate asks for your vote. Pass these questions on to your friends





> *Confused Liberals: The Top 21 Carbon Tax Questions*
> 
> Liberal Party leader *Stephane Dion could not explain his carbon tax plan to his own aides*.
> 
> ...


----------



## GAP (7 Aug 2008)

Sure glad it's Dion coming up with this scam.....I don't think I could have answered 5 of those questions.....and that would have taken a 1/2 hr......


----------



## a_majoor (9 Aug 2008)

Martha Hall Findley had some interesting things to say about the Carbon Tax. Let's examine them, shall we?

http://conservativeinnewbrunswick.blogspot.com/2008/08/voice-of-association-hidden-agenda-of.html



> *Voice of the Association: The Hidden Agenda of the Liberal Carbon Tax Revealed!*
> 
> This is a must read and I share it with you below from Voice of the Association.
> 
> ...


----------



## GAP (24 Sep 2008)

From an Email I just received from a friend.....

Carbon Tax   
  
The author of this, John Coates, lives in Nova Scotia. He would be even more disgusted if he lived here in BC where we already have a Carbon Tax . 

The Liberals Carbon Tax

Politicians have, in the past, used that old bullshit phrase of 'cutting taxes' to get you to vote for them.   
  
Now, Stéphane Dion, has come up with a new wrinkle on that old lie :   
·         Tax your heating oil and anything else you burn to move your food and everything else that you have always had in your life... but, he'll lower your income taxes. 

CONSIDER THIS from one person who has bothered to do the homework:

When a politician's lips move, I know he's probably lying. Mr. Dion says his carbon tax will be revenue neutral. So, I went online and found a carbon calculator and keyed in the annual energy consumption for our household and learned we produce 17 tons of greenhouse gas. Fully 60% of this usage is for electricity which we use to heat our home.

I have already improved insulation in my walls and replaced my windows and doors; use the new 'twirley' lights and ensured that my appliances are all Energy Star products. In the past 20 years, these measures reduced my electricity usage from 24,000 Kw Hrs per year to 16,000 Kw Hrs per year last year.   
  
What is my reward for this improved efficiency? 

·         My power bill is unchanged from what it was 20 years ago.   

·          But, my power bill would  attract  a carbon tax of $104 in year one of Mr. Dion's plan   

·          and $ 416 in year four.   

·         My power bill would rise from $166 per month to $210 per month in year four. 

Since I live on a fixed income consisting of CPP and Old Age Security, my income tax bill runs at less than $200 per year. So, for my household, Mr. Dion's 'revenue neutral' carbon tax will cost me $416 per year less income tax reductions of about $10 per year.

Revenue neutral? In a pig's eye! This is a tax on seniors living on fixed incomes.   
  
Well, Mr. Dion, you haven't got a snowball's chance in hell of ever getting my vote. I hope everyone else takes five minutes to run the same calculations I did and vote to send this joker to the political boneyard.

 SIGNED:   Jon C. Coates - 70 Ridgevalley Rd. - Halifax, N.S. - B3P 2J9

Factual data substantiating this:

·         16.96 tons 

·          60% of this is for electricity or 10.4 tons/year 

·          @ $10/ton in year 1 = $104 or $9/mo 

·          @ $20/ton in year 2 = $208 or $18/mo 

·          @ $30/ton in year 3 = $312 or $27/mo 

·          @ $40/ton in year 4 = $416 or $40/mo 

·          Income tax paid is $110/yr. 

DON'T BUY INTO THE CARBON TAX !
DON'T BELIEVE ANY POLITICIAN FROM ANY PARTY!
PASS THIS ON TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK IN CANADA.


----------



## Kirkhill (24 Sep 2008)

> According to Hans-Dieter Schilling (Energie-Fakten), the average efficiency of all coal power stations in the world currently stand at around 31%, leaving a vast potential to reduce coal consumption and CO2 emissions


Source



> Fully 60% of this usage is for electricity which* we use to heat our home.*



And therein lies a good chunk of Ontario's problems.  In the 1970s, the hey day of Ontario Hydro with its reliance on Nukes and Hydro, electricity was sold as a  "clean" power supply.  Just as it is now.  Except that if you run out of water or uranium fired boilers then you are forced back to good old-fashioned coal and gas.  Knock off an additional 10% efficiency for line losses and you are down to an overall efficiency of the grid approaching 25%.

Burning Natural Gas (or even Coal) at home would increase the overall efficiency into the 50 to 90% range, depending on furnace and home designs.


----------



## a_majoor (24 Sep 2008)

> According to Hans-Dieter Schilling (Energie-Fakten), the average efficiency of all coal power stations in the world currently stand at around 31%, leaving a vast potential to reduce coal consumption and CO2 emissions



The only way to reduce CO2 emissions or any other sorts of pollutants emitted during combustion is to find ways to overcome or bypass the thermodynamic losses of electricity generation and transmission. I suppose this is the source of the mythical "Green" technologies and "Green" jobs that are supposed to arrive via Unicorn under the Green Shaft Shift plan (or the Green or NDP plans, for that matter), but one only has to look at the vast list of potential technologies and their time-lines on A scary strategic problem - no oil, or the Global Warming Superthread to see how immature most of these technologies are and ponder how many decades of development would have to occur before they are in general usage.

The Carbon tax, by depressing business investment and R&D, would of course extend the time lines of some of these technologies to infinity while out of touch bureaucrats in Ottawa would be busy diverting "Green Shift" tax dollars to support companies chosen by politicians for their _political value_, not their _business acumen_ (we can see this with ethanol subsidies today; ethanol _consumes_ more energy than you ever get by burning it as a fuel.....).


----------



## adaminc (25 Sep 2008)

Supposedly there is a report out saying that a carbon tax shift of $50/tonne will have a positive effect on the GDP starting in 2015. Here is a link to the website and the report.

Oh, and the report was done for NRC by M.K. Jaccard and Associates.

http://www.greenparty.ca/en/releases/20.06.2007?origin=redirect

p.s. I am also looking for an article I recently read about one of the scandanavian countries (sweden or denmark), who enacted a pollution tax, and it seems to be working out well for them.


----------



## a_majoor (25 Sep 2008)

The Scandinavian "Carbon Tax" plans have little in common with the "Green Shaft Shift", since it is a form of VAT or sales tax applied only to the consumer, not the producer as in the Liberal plan. As well, the Liberal plan is designed to appeal to regional divides in Canada (i.e. milk the resource wealth of the West for the benefit of Ontario and Quebec, since the West is a Liberal desert while their core support is in Urban Ontario and Quebec). I suspect carbon taxes simply add another layer of taxation and bureaucracy to Scandinavian economies, so any potential benefits are lost in the noise.

An interesting point to ponder is that carbon taxes are designed (in theory) to reduce carbon output in the economy and environment. If they were to work as advertised; then tax revenues would decline. Governments which rely on a carbon tax for revenue either are lying about the environmental benefits, or will have to boost other taxes (or cut spending [when pigs fly]) to make up the deficit.


----------



## john10 (25 Sep 2008)

Thucydides said:
			
		

> An interesting point to ponder is that carbon taxes are designed (in theory) to reduce carbon output in the economy and environment. If they were to work as advertised; then tax revenues would decline. Governments which rely on a carbon tax for revenue either are lying about the environmental benefits, or will have to boost other taxes (or cut spending [when pigs fly]) to make up the deficit.


 I'm pretty sure the plan is designed to gradually increase the tax to fully reflect the negative externalities caused by green house gas emissions.


----------



## Cdn Blackshirt (25 Sep 2008)

john10 said:
			
		

> I'm pretty sure the plan is designed to gradually increase the tax to fully reflect the negative externalities caused by green house gas emissions.



Negative externalities caused by greenhouse gas emissions?  Give me a break.  Let's see that calculation for Canadians....



Matthew.   :


----------



## john10 (26 Sep 2008)

Cdn Blackshirt said:
			
		

> Negative externalities caused by greenhouse gas emissions?  Give me a break.


 Well that's the whole idea of man-made climate change, endorsed by the Liberal and Conservative parties alike.

Now if you don't believe in man-made climate change, that's fine, but you have to accept that that's the premise the Liberal plan is working from, and that it's the same premise the Conservatives are working from for their plan.


----------



## Proud_Newfoundlander (26 Sep 2008)

Im against the carbon tax

Well, for one, the proposed tax cuts are flat, while the costs of fuel are not, unless you cap them, which the greens and liberals dont plan to do. Since none of the parties really plan to, I doubt its realistic anyways. What about people on fixed incomes ? People having pensions, etc Will that be shifted ? is there subsidies ? I havent heard about any. This will also hurt trucking companies, and increase their costs to offset fuel prices, and as a result the food industry will have to pay more to meet the rates, or the truckers are dead in the water. This will be passed onto canadians, and the increasing cost of food, etc will likely offset tax cuts.  Not to mention taxes are collected once a year, there is a lot of "in-between".Also, many regions like the parairies and atlantic canada arent big polluters, will be the biggest hit by the carbon tax, so its really pointless. This is what is wrong with centralist one-shoe-fits-all policies, isn't it. Instead of going after regions like the toronto/southern Ontario that have high pollution, they hit everyone regardless of pollution levels. Also, rural/lower income individuals are bigger users of pollutants, very often lacking the ability to afford "green technology", so as a result they have to bear a bigger burden.This is also smeels a bit like a liberal cash-grab.

So, essentially, if you're rural, lower income, or even middle income, the carbon tax effects you negatively. I thought a party that 24-40 MP's from rural ridings wuld have a bit of a better understanding of rural regions.


----------



## Cdn Blackshirt (26 Sep 2008)

john10 said:
			
		

> Well that's the whole idea of man-made climate change, endorsed by the Liberal and Conservative parties alike.
> 
> Now if you don't believe in man-made climate change, that's fine, but you have to accept that that's the premise the Liberal plan is working from, and that it's the same premise the Conservatives are working from for their plan.



My point is their premise is laughable because they can't provide the calculation if you asked them too. 


Matthew.


----------



## john10 (12 Oct 2008)

Proud_Newfoundlander said:
			
		

> Im against the carbon tax
> 
> Well, for one, the proposed tax cuts are flat, while the costs of fuel are not, unless you cap them, which the greens and liberals dont plan to do. Since none of the parties really plan to, I doubt its realistic anyways. What about people on fixed incomes ? People having pensions, etc Will that be shifted ? is there subsidies ? I havent heard about any. This will also hurt trucking companies, and increase their costs to offset fuel prices, and as a result the food industry will have to pay more to meet the rates, or the truckers are dead in the water. This will be passed onto canadians, and the increasing cost of food, etc will likely offset tax cuts.  Not to mention taxes are collected once a year, there is a lot of "in-between".Also, many regions like the parairies and atlantic canada arent big polluters, will be the biggest hit by the carbon tax, so its really pointless. This is what is wrong with centralist one-shoe-fits-all policies, isn't it. Instead of going after regions like the toronto/southern Ontario that have high pollution, they hit everyone regardless of pollution levels. Also, rural/lower income individuals are bigger users of pollutants, very often lacking the ability to afford "green technology", so as a result they have to bear a bigger burden.This is also smeels a bit like a liberal cash-grab.
> 
> So, essentially, if you're rural, lower income, or even middle income, the carbon tax effects you negatively. I thought a party that 24-40 MP's from rural ridings wuld have a bit of a better understanding of rural regions.


 You make good points Prairie. Certain economic activities (trucking) and lifestyles (rural vs urban) will become more expensive, but that's exactly the point of the Green Shift; to induce changes in our behaviour by better integrating the environmental cost of our decisions into the price of things like trucking or living in a rural area.

The green shift in fact does have plenty of subsidies and credits for groups that will be affected though.

There is no reason why rural lifestyles should be supported beyond what the market already supports.


----------



## john10 (12 Oct 2008)

Cdn Blackshirt said:
			
		

> My point is their premise is laughable because they can't provide the calculation if you asked them too.
> 
> 
> Matthew.


 No, the premise (that man-caused climate change is a serious problem that needs to be addressed) is not laughable. 

You're right, there's a lot of uncertainty regarding the exact extent of the cost and the potential effect. However, there is not any question that if something costs more (carbon emissions), demand for it will be lower. You can always adjust the tax as you get data on how it has affected consumption.


----------



## George Wallace (12 Oct 2008)

john10 said:
			
		

> There is no reason why rural lifestyles should be supported beyond what the market already supports.



 ???

I think you will find that those in rural areas are a lot more "Green" than their urban counterparts.


----------



## George Wallace (12 Oct 2008)

john10 said:
			
		

> No, the premise (that man-caused climate change is a serious problem that needs to be addressed) is not laughable.



OK.  Just for you: it is supposed to be a point of contention that cattle produce too much methane and that is one of our largest causes of Green House Gases.  I have a simple solution; eat more beef.

What does eating more beef mean to our economy?  It means that our farmers stave off bankruptcy and produce a product that would be cheap for consumers.  It would put food on the table of millions.  We could send excess beef to those starving in far off nations.


----------



## john10 (12 Oct 2008)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> ???
> 
> I think you will find that those in rural areas are a lot more "Green" than their urban counterparts.


 I seriously doubt that. Rural living means a lot more car driving to get around, and I suspect, higher heating costs on average than urban people.

This isn't a moral judgment, it's just an observation on the environmental impact of the lifestyle.


----------



## john10 (12 Oct 2008)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> OK.  Just for you: it is supposed to be a point of contention that cattle produce too much methane and that is one of our largest causes of Green House Gases.  I have a simple solution; eat more beef.
> 
> What does eating more beef mean to our economy?  It means that our farmers stave off bankruptcy and produce a product that would be cheap for consumers.  It would put food on the table of millions.  We could send excess beef to those starving in far off nations.


 I'm not sure what the point of this post is.


----------



## George Wallace (12 Oct 2008)

john10 said:
			
		

> I seriously doubt that. Rural living means a lot more car driving to get around, and I suspect, higher heating costs on average than urban people.
> 
> This isn't a moral judgment, it's just an observation on the environmental impact of the lifestyle.



Really?

Where are you more likely to find homes with Geothermal heating?  Solar power and Solar heated water?  Windmills?  Some even use water powered generators.  Who are more likely to grow their own food?  Who are more likely to be hunters and fishers?  Who are less likely to be consumer orientated and more into conservation.  Who are more likely to buy things that will be multi purpose and recycle?  Who are more likely to compost?  Who are less likely to park on a freeway?  Just an observation.


----------



## a_majoor (12 Oct 2008)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> OK.  Just for you: it is supposed to be a point of contention that cattle produce too much methane and that is one of our largest causes of Green House Gases.  I have a simple solution; eat more beef.
> 
> What does eating more beef mean to our economy?  It means that our farmers stave off bankruptcy and produce a product that would be cheap for consumers.  It would put food on the table of millions.  We could send excess beef to those starving in far off nations.



This particular solution is more akin to strip mining. If you ate the current herds of beef, then you would have a short term spike in farm incomes and a long term reduction in methane etc. Producing more beef to keep up with escalating demand would indeed lower the overall price of beef, and create a revenue stream for farmers, but also put stress on other aspects of the food, water and energy chain, particularly high "input" crops like corn (maize) and grain used to feed cattle. 

Raise goats instead.


----------



## George Wallace (12 Oct 2008)

Well.  We still have the Hog Farmers, Poultry Farmers, Elk Farmers, Ostrich Farmers,...........

I would get sick of beef on a three to five meal a day, seven day a week plan.


----------



## Old Sweat (12 Oct 2008)

John10

I am sure you are not, but you are coming across as a totalitarian. Who gives you or anyone else the right to tell Canadians where or where not they may choose to live? Doesn't that prohibition violate all sorts of provisions in the charter? What next, forcing people to live in the dreary vertical Gulags of the past and unlamented USSR?


----------



## john10 (12 Oct 2008)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> Really?
> 
> Where are you more likely to find homes with Geothermal heating?  Solar power and Solar heated water?  Windmills?  Some even use water powered generators.  Who are more likely to grow their own food?  Who are more likely to be hunters and fishers?  Who are less likely to be consumer orientated and more into conservation.  Who are more likely to buy things that will be multi purpose and recycle?  Who are more likely to compost?  Who are less likely to park on a freeway?  Just an observation.


 Most of these things remain very marginal, and I'm not even sure you're more likely to find them in rural rather than urban settings (solar power for instance).


----------



## john10 (12 Oct 2008)

Old Sweat said:
			
		

> John10
> 
> I am sure you are not, but you are coming across as a totalitarian. Who gives you or anyone else the right to tell Canadians where or where not they may choose to live? Doesn't that prohibition violate all sorts of provisions in the charter? What next, forcing people to live in the dreary vertical Gulags of the past and unlamented USSR?


 Respectfully, you should re-read my posts, because I've made no such suggestion.

I am saying that the full environmental cost of certain economic activities and lifestyles should be integrated into their price, and that if this is done, I suspect living in a rural area will prove more expensive, and that there is no reason to subsidize this lifestyle over the long term, beyond what the market is able to sustain in terms of people living in the country.


----------



## George Wallace (12 Oct 2008)

john10 said:
			
		

> Respectfully, you should re-read my posts, because I've made no such suggestion.
> 
> I am saying that the full environmental cost of certain economic activities and lifestyles should be integrated into their price, and that if this is done, I suspect living in a rural area will prove more expensive, and that there is no reason to subsidize this lifestyle over the long term, beyond what the market is able to sustain in terms of people living in the country.



One could turn around and ask why it is that we have to subsidize urban dwellers?  Why does the Government (on several levels) have to subsidize urban transportation systems?  Why does the Federal Government subsidize Airports?  Why is there a reason for them to subsidize Water Treatment, Sewers, and Garbage removal?  Why does the Government have to subsidize urban Schools?  Universities?  Colleges?  Why does the Government have to subsidize urban infrastructure?  Policing, Fire and Ambulance?  

I am really unclear as to what you are getting on about when you comment "subsidize this lifestyle"?


----------



## TCBF (12 Oct 2008)

john10 said:
			
		

> Respectfully, you should re-read my posts, because I've made no such suggestion.
> 
> I am saying that the full environmental cost of certain economic activities and lifestyles should be integrated into their price, and that if this is done, I suspect living in a rural area will prove more expensive, and that there is no reason to subsidize this lifestyle over the long term, beyond what the market is able to sustain in terms of people living in the country.



- Interesting. Let's start with these newfangled flat-screen LCD and similar TV and computer monitors.  We have the EnerGuideStaatsPolizie slapping efficiency stickers on fridges, stoves, washers, dryers and furnaces, yet we have more TVs than appliances, and the TVs are getting LESS efficient.  Your average flat-screen uses about four to five times more energy than a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) screen.

- Lets kick-off this carbon gig with a $100 per flat-screen monitor tax.  Watch the Larry Lunchboxes and Suzy Sewingkits of the country pee themselves.


----------



## john10 (13 Oct 2008)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> One could turn around and ask why it is that we have to subsidize urban dwellers?  Why does the Government (on several levels) have to subsidize urban transportation systems?  Why does the Federal Government subsidize Airports?  Why is there a reason for them to subsidize Water Treatment, Sewers, and Garbage removal?  Why does the Government have to subsidize urban Schools?  Universities?  Colleges?  Why does the Government have to subsidize urban infrastructure?  Policing, Fire and Ambulance?
> 
> I am really unclear as to what you are getting on about when you comment "subsidize this lifestyle"?


 Imposing a tax on carbon would make life more expensive for rural people, since their lifestyle is more carbon-intensive. My point is that governments should not try to subsidize the lifestyle and should instead let whatever natural migration occurs take place.

There is no particular benefit to having people live in the countryside rather than cities, so if we do eventually move toward "internalizing" the environmental cost of economic activities into their price, we should let the process take its course and let people deal with the new economic reality of more expensive life in rural areas.


----------



## Kirkhill (13 Oct 2008)

Well,  John10, I see you have attracted the attention of the rest of the group here.  Just a few of my thoughts.

In the country the sanitary needs of a family can be met with a hole in the ground for quite a few years.  In the city it seems we need billions of dollars of infrastructure to prevent the inmates choking on their own excrement.
In the country a well meets the needs of the family.  In the city more billions are needed to bring water from distant places so that the denizens can drink and wash.
In the country when you drive from point a to point b you get there.  You don't spend hours parked in traffic with the engine running. 
In the country you don't cover greenspace with asphalt and rock and people.


----------



## a_majoor (13 Oct 2008)

TCBF said:
			
		

> - Interesting. Let's start with these newfangled flat-screen LCD and similar TV and computer monitors.  We have the EnerGuideStaatsPolizie slapping efficiency stickers on fridges, stoves, washers, dryers and furnaces, yet we have more TVs than appliances, and the TVs are getting LESS efficient.  Your average flat-screen uses about four to five times more energy than a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) screen.
> 
> - Lets kick-off this carbon gig with a $100 per flat-screen monitor tax.  Watch the Larry Lunchboxes and Suzy Sewingkits of the country pee themselves.



LCD's use far less power than CRT's and far less materials to make as well. Do you have a citation for your claim? What sort of flat panel technology are you using for your basis of comparison?

WRT urban vs rural lifestyles, urban living is much more resource intensive (although the ability to manipulate energy and resources is the basis of creating real wealth). Rural dwellers can take advantage of alternative energy more easily than urban dwellers since alternative energy is low density energy, and they have lots of land to establish collectors and low population density to consume it. By contrast, I would have a great deal of difficulty placing solar panels on my property where they would not be shaded at some point during the day, or drilling a well for geothermal energy etc.


----------



## john10 (13 Oct 2008)

TCBF said:
			
		

> - Interesting. Let's start with these newfangled flat-screen LCD and similar TV and computer monitors.  We have the EnerGuideStaatsPolizie slapping efficiency stickers on fridges, stoves, washers, dryers and furnaces, yet we have more TVs than appliances, and the TVs are getting LESS efficient.  Your average flat-screen uses about four to five times more energy than a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) screen.
> 
> - Lets kick-off this carbon gig with a $100 per flat-screen monitor tax.  Watch the Larry Lunchboxes and Suzy Sewingkits of the country pee themselves.


 I agree with the basic idea but think it would be better to simply tax dirty energy in the first place. In a related matter, I don't think it makes sense to tax SUVs instead of compact cars. Instead, it's much simpler to tax gasoline uniformly, since what matters is how much gas is consumed, not what type of car it's being consumed in.

Your assimilation of EnerGuide to a Nazi organization is bizarre. EnerGuide doesn't compel anybody to do anything, all it does is provide information as far as I know.


----------



## stryte (13 Oct 2008)

john10 said:
			
		

> Imposing a tax on carbon would make life more expensive for rural people, since their lifestyle is more carbon-intensive.



Yes a carbon tax will make life more expensive but it will do that for everyone. I, like others disagree with your opinion that living in the country is more cabon-intensive. I know here in Sask, plenty of country people who embrace technology in order to not only supply their own power but also contribute power back to the grid which everyone can use. SaskPower has built roughly 100 massive wind turbines some of which are found on these country folk land. Others I know have installed such things as furnaces which burn low grade grain (which they grow themselves) or homes with sod insultation. I could go on.



> There is no particular benefit to having people live in the countryside rather than cities,


You might want to go tell that to all the people living out there then. I am sure they could give you a few benefits. One thing I can think of is the number who use their land as a primary or secondary source of income. Such as food! Which if you ate food today I think you have an interest in. Unless of course you'd rather we import all our grains, fruits, vegtables and meats. We can let China produce it all for us, send it across the ocean on a big ship than truck it into the cities just so a few city folk don't get upset about a country family recieving a subsidy their family doesn't.


----------



## TCBF (13 Oct 2008)

john10 said:
			
		

> ...Your assimilation of EnerGuide to a Nazi organization is bizarre. EnerGuide doesn't compel anybody to do anything, all it does is provide information as far as I know.



- Mea Culpa.  A grossly unfair statement on my part, made for dramatic effect.  Now, lets put their labels on everything electric.


----------



## Edward Campbell (13 Oct 2008)

A properly designed carbon tax – something Dion's *bloody stupid* Green Shaft Shift is not - would, indeed, add something to the costs of rural living, but since 100% of a properly designed carbon tax would be paid by carbon 'consumers' everywhere - including by those who buy food grown in rural areas, live in houses built from raw materials 'harvested' in rural areas, drive cars, wear clothes and heat their homes in winter - then the effect will be, broadly, a 'wash' compared with today.

Any tax which aims, as does Dion's monstrosity, to 'punish' one region while buying votes in another is poor bad public policy proposed by an inept, _regional_ political party.


----------



## George Wallace (13 Oct 2008)

john10 said:
			
		

> Imposing a tax on carbon would make life more expensive for rural people, since their lifestyle is more carbon-intensive. My point is that governments should not try to subsidize the lifestyle and should instead let whatever natural migration occurs take place.
> 
> There is no particular benefit to having people live in the countryside rather than cities, so if we do eventually move toward "internalizing" the environmental cost of economic activities into their price, we should let the process take its course and let people deal with the new economic reality of more expensive life in rural areas.



I would really like to know where you are coming from.  Where are you getting the idea that the Carbon Footprint in the rural areas is so much larger than the urban areas, and that the rural areas are so much more subsidized than urban areas?  With the 'Almagamation' of municipal and rural areas in many of Canada's new mega cities, we find it is the rural dwellers who are loosing out, through higher taxes, and fewer services.  I would say that you don't have many of your facts correct.





			
				john10 said:
			
		

> I agree with the basic idea but think it would be better to simply tax dirty energy in the first place. In a related matter, I don't think it makes sense to tax SUVs instead of compact cars. Instead, it's much simpler to tax gasoline uniformly, since what matters is how much gas is consumed, not what type of car it's being consumed in.



I see from this, that you drive a SUV.   ;D


----------



## Brad Sallows (13 Oct 2008)

>Imposing a tax on carbon would make life more expensive for rural people, since their lifestyle is more carbon-intensive. My point is that governments should not try to subsidize the lifestyle and should instead let whatever natural migration occurs take place.

Without an actual assessment of everything that goes into supporting a rural family and everything that goes into supporting an urban family, it is pointless to assume one or the other is more greatly "subsidized".  It's a fact that there are many pickup trucks in rural areas, and the owners do drive them large distances.  However, it's a fact that in urban areas there are office and apartment towers that are heated and lit 24/7, people commute, the roads are clogged with delivery vehicles (my estimate is that the most common vehicle type on the roads is a white full-size van), there is a vast network of paved and concreted roadwork, some suburbs have homes over 4000 sq ft, there are many more public green spaces which require maintenance (fertilizer, fuels) etc, etc.  Do not make the mistake of merely measuring what people consume day-to-day.  All of the supporting infrastructure must be measured.


----------



## GAP (14 Oct 2008)

NDP has largest campaign carbon footprint: analyst
Updated Tue. Oct. 14 2008 10:32 AM ET CTV.ca News Staff
Article Link

The leaders of the three main political parties have each generated enough carbon emissions this election campaign to equal the output of 1,000 people driving their car for an entire year. 

The David Suzuki Foundation monitored the carbon footprints of the party leaders throughout the campaign, based on where they went everyday and how they travelled. 

"The three main leaders have travelled between 46,000 and 56,000 kilometres, and that's more than once around the world for each of them," Dale Marshall, a climate change policy analyst with the David Suzuki Foundation told CTV's Canada AM. 

"We know the leaders criss-cross the country over the course of the campaign and even fly from one end of the country to the other in order to cover the ridings they want to be in, so it's no surprise really." 

Green Party leader Elizabeth May travelled by train during the campaign, conducting an old fashioned whistle-stop tour that resulted in much lower carbon emissions than the other leaders. 

"It really does highlight the big, big difference between travelling by train and travelling by plane, especially when it comes to short distances -- Ottawa to Montreal or Montreal to Toronto or Calgary to Edmonton," Marshall said. 
More on link


----------



## john10 (19 Oct 2008)

Pilon said:
			
		

> Yes a carbon tax will make life more expensive but it will do that for everyone.


 If it's accompanied by income tax reductions, then relatively speaking, people who consume less carbon would find themselves richer.



			
				Pilon said:
			
		

> I, like others disagree with your opinion that living in the country is more cabon-intensive. I know here in Sask, plenty of country people who embrace technology in order to not only supply their own power but also contribute power back to the grid which everyone can use. SaskPower has built roughly 100 massive wind turbines some of which are found on these country folk land. Others I know have installed such things as furnaces which burn low grade grain (which they grow themselves) or homes with sod insultation. I could go on.


 I'll admit I don't have any concrete evidence that rural people consume more carbon than urban. I was mainly going by the fact that when the notion of a carbon tax was introduced, there was a lot of handwringing about how rural people would be disadvantaged because they emit more carbon. It makes sense though. People in rural areas don't have public transport and don't live in apartment buildings and so have higher heating costs.

This study by Brookings found that people who live in metro areas emit less. http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2008/05_carbon_footprint_sarzynski.aspx



			
				Pilon said:
			
		

> You might want to go tell that to all the people living out there then. I am sure they could give you a few benefits. One thing I can think of is the number who use their land as a primary or secondary source of income. Such as food! Which if you ate food today I think you have an interest in. Unless of course you'd rather we import all our grains, fruits, vegtables and meats. We can let China produce it all for us, send it across the ocean on a big ship than truck it into the cities just so a few city folk don't get upset about a country family recieving a subsidy their family doesn't.


 You make good points. If we did apply a carbon tax though, the environmental cost of shipping food from overseas would be built into the price of food. As I said, I don't see any benefits of having people living in rural areas versus urban areas that aren't already taken into account by the market.


----------



## john10 (19 Oct 2008)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> A properly designed carbon tax – something Dion's *bloody stupid* Green Shaft Shift is not - would, indeed, add something to the costs of rural living, but since 100% of a properly designed carbon tax would be paid by carbon 'consumers' everywhere - including by those who buy food grown in rural areas, live in houses built from raw materials 'harvested' in rural areas, drive cars, wear clothes and heat their homes in winter - then the effect will be, broadly, a 'wash' compared with today.


 I'm not an expert by any means, but if the tax is imposed on companies, and they just pass it on to consumers, then isn't the effect basically the same?


----------



## john10 (19 Oct 2008)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> I would really like to know where you are coming from.  Where are you getting the idea that the Carbon Footprint in the rural areas is so much larger than the urban areas, and that the rural areas are so much more subsidized than urban areas?  With the 'Almagamation' of municipal and rural areas in many of Canada's new mega cities, we find it is the rural dwellers who are loosing out, through higher taxes, and fewer services.  I would say that you don't have many of your facts correct.


 I'm not saying rural people are subsidized right now, I'm saying that in the eventuality that a carbon tax is imposed, I see no reason why they should be subsidized, since I expect the cost of rural living to go up. As I replied to the other fellow, I have no hard evidence, I was just going by the fact that there was a lot of complaining about a carbon tax being unfair to rural regions because they apparently emit more.



			
				George Wallace said:
			
		

> I see from this, that you drive a SUV.   ;D


 Hehe, no just bicycle and metro for me.


----------



## Edward Campbell (19 Oct 2008)

john10 said:
			
		

> I'm not an expert by any means, but if the tax is imposed on companies, and they just pass it on to consumers, then isn't the effect basically the same?




I’m not an tax expert either but the answer is: *No*, because the more competitive the market the more likely the producer is to ‘eat’ part of the tax in order to keep prices down. The tax needs to _flow through_ the system so that the consumer always pays 100%.

Thus: the producers of shale oil should pay a tax on the carbon they *use* to extract/produce heavy crude – they add that tax to the price but, later, claim that tax back as a business cost or à la the GST, as a rebate (carbon taxes paid minus carbon taxes collected = _rebate_ or amount owed). The purchaser of the heavy crude (a refinery) pays tax on all the carbon used to transport the heavy crude to the refinery and make it into consumer ready products – it is also added to the price (two tax ‘bites’ now) and then claimed back. The gas companies pay tax on the carbon they to move the crude to cities – once again added to the price (the third time a tax is added) and  these costs are claimed as legitimate business expenses or as a rebate. Next, the retailer pays taxes on the carbon used in delivery and in operating his gas station – taxes which he also adds to the price and then claims a rebate or a legitimate business expense. Finally, the consumer pays the taxes – all four – when (s)he fills the tank; but there are no rebates, unless (s)he is a business owner (Josephine the plumber, for example). If it’s just a _Hockey Mom_ filling the mini-van then she pays all the taxes that have accumulated on the carbon she is going to use. 

It cannot be exactly like the GST - which is a ‘level’ tax and, essentially, a value added tax - because, presumably, we will have complex calculations to set the carbon levels of e.g. coal, oil (light crude vs. heavy crude, too?), natural gas and so on.

It would be possible, but less desirable, from a tax policy POV to tax each ‘consumer’ (the _extractor_, refiner, deliverer and retailer) as distinct entities and require them to ‘eat’ the tax (not claim it back as an expense) but a ‘good’ consumption tax is both _visible_ and _discretionary_. If the taxes are just factored into the price the end user/consumer does not know that (s)he is paying a tax on carbon use – (s)he does not know that her government has decided to tax carbon use. The idea of _discretionary_ tax is that *you can decide* how much tax to pay by the ways you decide to do things. *You can drive less*, set the thermostat lower, and so on. 

There are limits on how much _discretion_ you have – the poor have fewer _consumption_ choices than do the rich. Thus a consumption tax must be accompanied by a cut in income taxes – always bad things, anyway – to those with low(er) incomes.

Finally: To the degree that a carbon tax is also a green tax – one designed to change behaviours – then it makes no sense at all for anyone except the end user to pay all of the taxes. The behaviour of the producers is driven, totally, by the consumers. If the consumers do not feel all the pain of the tax then they will continue to demand more and more from the producers and the tax becomes useless as an environmental measure.


----------



## Snafu-Bar (19 Oct 2008)

Using taxes as a form of environmental reform is assinine to begin with. Tax is not going to curb pollution, LAWS and REGULATIONS will. Legislation mandating a clean production cycle of any consumables OR ELSE is the only way to get corporations to start looking after thier end of the shit stick for once. Levey them with stiff fines that go into a pollution fund to be used on environmental projects that NEED attention and money to fix. Thus when a polluter pollutes the money then comes in and goes out to where it really matters. Board rooms and investors may look at this as the wrong approach, but it's the bullseye approach, target the problem and deal with it appropriately. Enough pollution fines will put a sizable fund together to start throwing money at fixing headache pollution problems head on, using the money from the TOP not the bottom of the economic food chain, as it should be done.

 Cheers.


----------



## Edward Campbell (19 Oct 2008)

But we Canadians do use taxes to *try* to minimize perfectly legal and proper behaviours that we *believe* to be harmful: the so called _sin taxes_ on tobacco and alcohol are the primary examples.

Price/cost can be an incentive: adding a small charge for plastic bags, as is done in Ireland for example, did change the pattern of use.

Before the national authorities displayed their shocking lack of courage – of all types – and decided to allow aboriginals to flagrantly break the laws, the _sin tax_ on tobacco *was working* – fewer children were smoking, year after year, because they could not afford the habit. Now the decline has been reversed in many regions because _”tax free”_ aboriginal cigarettes are readily available - because Canadian politicians are afraid to enforce our laws.


----------



## Snafu-Bar (19 Oct 2008)

Yes past mistakes are clearly present and steamrolling along unchecked. Taxes are a means to collect infrastructure cash and is usefull if implemented correctly and at proper rates. Taxing taxes and hidden fee's and tarrifs unloaded on consumers is more along the lines of the practices that need to be addressed. Sin taxes we're put in place to grab cash on people who wished to purchase items deemed luxuries back in the days of it's inception, then you add provincial grabs then the federal grabs. Taxing the end user for these items is fine and acceptable, taxing the taxes is NOT, that as far as i'm concerned is theft. Couple in income tax(a ww1 leftover) that was supposed to be "temporary" and you can see where this leads...right back to Ottawa and the gang of thieves and liars. 

 The people on top who make the calls on HOW companies operate and how they choose to deal with thier impact on the environment are the ones DIRECTLY responsible for end results of pollution, thus they should be the targets for any tax or penalties for causing pollution. Targeting the consumer for the brainwashed existences we have become dependant on is no longer of our making and has become our NEED. We NEED electricity, we NEED transportation, and we need to work to afford those items. Can we exist without leaving an impact on the environment, some may be able to, but the average person is not going to be able to "unplug" from the system we are stuck in without having the financial means to do so. Thus we are trapped into having no choice but play our parts in the mass quantities of living. 

 The carbon grab would generate a ton of money for Ottawa to spend on thier nice new holiday packages and hefty 30% pay raises for all thier "hard work" raping the populous of thier last pennies and driving the nation into a mass cash crunch is NOT the way to fix our habits. Fix the habits by elimination, eliminate tobacco PERIOD. If theres a crop of tobacco on the grow go in and do like they do to marijuana and dismantle it. No more tobacco growing means no more problem. Also means no more tax inflow. Stoppping things will have just as much negative impact as positive. Einstien knew his stuff well  Stopping smoking will have positive health care impacts as well as environmental impacts from producing it to using it. The negative side is all financial, no crops for the farmer no production for the workers and no product to tax the bejesus out of. 

So we are stuck in the loop of WTF do we do now scenario. Tax is here to stay, but ways of life come and go. Eliminate by innovation... evolution. Either way Ottawa will invent a pocket lint converter to make new crisp currency one way or another.

 Cheers.


----------



## Kirkhill (19 Oct 2008)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> But we Canadians do use taxes to *try* to minimize perfectly legal and proper behaviours that we *believe* to be harmful: the so called _sin taxes_ on tobacco and alcohol are the primary examples.
> 
> Price/cost can be an incentive: adding a small charge for plastic bags, as is done in Ireland for example, did change the pattern of use.
> 
> Before the national authorities displayed their shocking lack of courage – of all types – and decided to allow aboriginals to flagrantly break the laws, the _sin tax_ on tobacco *was working* – fewer children were smoking, year after year, because they could not afford the habit. Now the decline has been reversed in many regions because _”tax free”_ aboriginal cigarettes are readily available - because Canadian politicians are afraid to enforce our laws.




I wonder if Harper's recognition of the Quebecois as a nation can help him in that reqard.  He essentially "gave" the Quebecois what they wanted to hear, recognition, but in legal terms it means nothing.  Harper has said that he recognizes the concept of the nation.  He stipulates that nations (plural) exist within Canada.  But the Quebecois have no legal standing within Canada.  That is what caused Gilles et al to scream so loudly about.   "The Quebecois" is merely those citizens of the Province of Quebec that "feel" themselves to Quebecois.   Some of them may "feel" that other Quebecers are also Quebecois but many will feel that some that call themselves Quebecois are not sufficiently Pure Laine to justify the tag.  Consequently it is impossible to separate Quebecois from Quebecers form legal purposes so the laws that apply to one must apply to all.  And the laws that apply to all are the laws of Quebec and of Canada.

By extension, the First Nations, can now be politically recognized as nations without any legal requirement to recognize the Nations as legal entities except insofar as any treaties already exist.  That would mean that Canadian law would be enforceable on land occupied by natives.

The Iroquois are a special case by virtue of the geopolitical situation existing at the time of signing their treaties.  They have a legitimate, in my view, case to make that they are neither Canadians nor Americans because the treaties made with them were explicitly treaties between one national leader, King George III, and an equal.  The Americans did not recognize the Iroquois de jure but  British force majeure forced a de facto recognition.  In some senses the right solution for the Iroquois is for both countries to recognize a separate Iroquois state on their borders then put up passport controls and negotiate Iroquois access to US and Canadian markets.  With tariffs on cigarettes and all.

Digression - to perhaps be furthered on some of the Aboriginal threads.

Back to your discussion on Carbon and other Sin Taxes......I know you are being consistent on this one Edward but I am afraid that you and I don't see eye to eye on this one.  I neither accept the premises for a "Carbon" tax - that Carbon is destroying the planet and that humans are responsible nor do I accept that taxing energy consumption generally is beneficial.  Organisms and Organizations need Energy.  They will find it from whatever sources are available and scarcities will be addressed accordingly, prices will rise and efficiencies and alternatives will be found.

I have no problem regulating Cleanliness, Hygiene and even Order and merely stipulating thou shalt not discharge wantonly (I spent 5 years in London Pea Soupers that would make Beijing's smogs look like Prairie mists).  But let's not pretend that it is anything more than that.  

I especially don't like the idea of throttling the gas at the same time as we are trying to improve productivity so that 1 working adult can support 2 retirees and a child or two.  Increased productivity demands more energy.


PS (If water is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2 then what will be the impact on the environment when we convert everything to hydrogen engines that continue to suck up oxygen but then convert it to water which plants can recycle to O2?  Do we get more clouds, less sun, more rain, fewer plants, more mud and less Oxygen?)


----------



## Kat Stevens (19 Oct 2008)

I live in a rural, agricultural area in Central Alberta.  Within a kilometre of my house, there are 24 residences and farm buildings.  Calculate the amount of carbon produced in my square kilometre, I would, but I'm lazy.  Now calculate the carbon barfed out by one square kilometre of the 401 on any given day.  Yup, cities are the way to go, carbon production wise...  :


----------



## a_majoor (19 Oct 2008)

Trying to wish away carbon with taxes, hydrogen or mythical "Green" technologies that the gods will deliver from Mount Olympus _real soon now_ is about as practical as designing your household budget around winning the lottery.

Carbon and hydrocarbon fuels are high energy density fuels which are solid or liquid at sensible temperatures and are usable with a very wide array of technology, from steam engines to fuel cells. They are relatively non toxic (think about that next time you are at the self serve gas station), and require a minimum of special equipment to transport and store. Any real or proposed challenger needs to have most of these attributes, or it is doomed for niche status at best. 

People and business modify their behaviours based on a complex array of variables, including price, availability, convenience and so on, so raising or lowering taxes based on carbon content might or might not work. Indeed, it might induce perverse outcomes, such as everyone switching to CNG (compressed natural gas) as transportation fuel, spiking prices for household consumers as the natural gas they demand for their heating and cooking gets diverted to the vehicle and electrical generation market looking to escape carbon taxes. Environmentalists might also contemplate the effects of giant coal gassification plants turning coal into Syngas will have on the landscape, water supply and electrical generating grid in the area...

We have already seen the effects of the market economy at work, as the massive spike in gasoline prices this summer essentially killed the market for large trucks, SUV's and luxury cars in one financial quarter (and probably dooming the "Big Three", but that is another story), and caused a vast reduction in crude oil use throughout the US economy (from trucking to airline flights). Market forces can drive the adoption of new hydrocarbon based power supplies which bypass the thermodynamic limits of heat engines (fuel cells may only be the _first_ of these technologies), unless perverse government interventions divert resources away from these technologies to wherever the State provides a quick payoff (remember that Ethanol was supposed to be the answer; huge government subsidies resulted in a food crisis since the State was paying people to burn food!).


----------



## GAP (22 Oct 2008)

When all's said and done, the carbon tax is toast
 JEFFREY SIMPSON jsimpson@globeandmail.com October 22, 2008
Article Link

The demise of Stéphane Dion has killed any national attempt to tax carbon-producing products. Even if such a tax were offset by lower personal and corporate taxes, Canadians apparently won't accept this way of tackling the challenge of greenhouse-gas emissions that warm the atmosphere.

In British Columbia, Premier Gordon Campbell's carbon tax, offset by lower taxes on incomes and companies, has sailed into strong political headwinds. "Axe the tax," cries the opposition NDP to a widening chorus of applause.

No matter that 230 economists, who usually cannot agree that today is Wednesday, signed a letter in the last week of the federal election campaign implicitly recommending a carbon tax. No matter that 120 of Canada's leading scientists wrote an open letter, too, urging immediate action.

Most Canadians apparently aren't interested in paying anything extra to reduce emissions. They want the cheapest possible prices for gasoline, heating oil, electricity and other forms of energy. They don't trust politicians to recycle the revenues from a carbon tax into lower personal and corporate income taxes.
More on link


----------



## Brad Sallows (25 Oct 2008)

>They don't trust politicians to recycle the revenues from a carbon tax into lower personal and corporate income taxes.

That's pretty much all of it right there.  The politicians and the people who use government spending as a tap have proven remarkably unable to discipline themselves.  Until I see tens of billions of dollars of evidence that they are serious about cutting inappropriate spending, they can talk to the hand.


----------



## Edward Campbell (22 Jun 2014)

I don't know if this will change any minds, but Hank Paulson, a pretty _conservative_ guy, says that a carbon tax, properly applied, should be part of any sane _conservative_ programme in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from _Business Insider_:

http://www.businessinsider.com/hank-paulson-on-climate-change-2014-6


> HANK PAULSON: Climate Change Risk Is The New Housing Bubble
> 
> Rob Wile
> 
> ...




I happen to agree with Hank Paulson on a number of levels. I think we do have an _imbalance_ in energy use. Governments should be trying to encourage _behaviors_ that make the most _effective_ use of energy sources. We *know*, from our experiences with the so called _sin taxes_ on tobacco and alcohol that taxes (cost) can be an _incentive_ to change behavior ~ even if it is only to buy cigarettes smuggled in by First Nations rather than those produced by legitimate, tax paying corporations.

A carbon tax, a green tax can be implemented in a way that will, most likely, change behaviors and increase revenues. (To those who say that we don't need more revenue I say *a)* see the defence budget and think again, or *b)* fine, then lower income taxes by similar amounts, especially for lower income Canadians.)

A sensible, _conservative_ carbon tax would look  very, very much like the HST: it would be transferred, 100% to the end user, you and me, and paid every time we fill the gas tank, turn on the air conditioner or the big screen TV set. Carbon producers and transporters would be credited with their _shares_, in and out, as they are now with the HST. But the trucks and trains that move e.g. milk and lettuce from farms to grocery stores would pay and they would add that cost to their prices.


Edited to add: Here is a link to Hank Paulson's opinion piece in the _New York Times, Sunday Review__ that provoked the article above. Elsewhere, in the NYT Paul Krugman suggests that Paulson is preaching to a very, very small choir of conservatives who are still sane.
_


----------



## GAP (22 Jun 2014)

A carbon tax would end up just being another money grab....look at lottery revenues....governments are now dependant on it as a revenue stream. 

The idea is laudable, the execution, not so much....


----------



## Edward Campbell (22 Jun 2014)

GAP said:
			
		

> A carbon tax would end up just being another money grab....look at lottery revenues....governments are now dependant on it as a revenue stream.
> 
> The idea is laudable, the execution, not so much....




All taxes are "money grabs," but they are part of the _social contract_ that allows us to live as we do.

In a perfect world we would pay one _general tax_ that would fund a (statutory/constitutionally defined) very limited series of functions - including the national defence. Everything not on that short list - health care, highways, education, and, and, and ... - would be funded by highly focused taxes and user fees, each tied to a programme and each growing (or, in theory, declining) as needs grow (or decline, in theory).

A green tax (a carbon tax paid 100% by end users) would fund all environmental projects and programmes.


----------



## Rocky Mountains (22 Jun 2014)

Don't we already have a fairly substantial carbon tax?  Fuels already have a reasonably high gas taxes.  Just quadruple these and put an equivalent tax on coal.  Simple because maybe 10 companies produce 98% of coal.  Domestic problem solved.

Exports - sounds simple but we would end up hiring thousands of bureaucrats who would reasonably in theory,  but in practice, arbitrarily, pick apart every import from every country for its carbon based energy component.

The beauty of it is that oil or coal exports would not be taxed and we could tax the average carbon component of Chinese industrial production.  The one thing hard for the voters to stomach is that it should be on home heating or effectiveness is shot.


----------



## Kat Stevens (23 Jun 2014)

The concept of a carbon tax sort of sounds like buying a papal dispensation back in the day.  It won't do anything to reduce the carbon output, just effect the lives of those who are least able to afford it the hardest.  Taxing the hell out of us again won't do anything to fix the damage done.


----------



## vonGarvin (23 Jun 2014)

The "science" behind Carbon-caused warming is iffy, especially given the trend of the last ~17 years or so (no increase in temperatures).  New tax?  No thank you.


This is, I think, a case of the truism that if you say something often enough, people will start to believe it, irrespective of any evidence to the contrary.

We are already taxed nearly to death, to the point that the very basic building block of our society, the family, is fragmented to the point where the kids are removed from the home as soon as possible,
both parents are required to work just to make ends meet, and our future, children, are discouraged as nothing more than burdens and we ought instead to be ought working (i.e. paying taxes)

So, to a new tax upon the other 1001 "sin" taxes, I say no.


----------



## Edward Campbell (23 Jun 2014)

Kat Stevens said:
			
		

> The concept of a carbon tax sort of sounds like buying a papal dispensation back in the day.  It won't do anything to reduce the carbon output, just effect the lives of those who are least able to afford it the hardest.  Taxing the hell out of us again won't do anything to fix the damage done.




I like the analogy but it might be 180o out of phase. The purpose of dispensations was to recognize than we, humans, are very, very fallible and need some forgiveness, etc. _Sin taxes_, on the other hand, say that, given an appropriate _incentive_ (a punishment in the case of tax) people can be _persuaded_ to change their behavior ~ a "go forth and sin no more" sort of thing.

But the real aim of a carbon tax, as I read Hank Paulson's notion, is to make the most *efficient* (in economic terms) use of the available energy resources. Gasoline, refined from crude oil, for example, is, currently, the most _efficient_ form of fuel for mobile applications. Crude oil and heavy oil (oil sands, etc) are both thought to be available in finite quantities so we should both *a)* _reserve_ it for mobile (mainly transportation) applications, and *b)* encourage, by making gasoline more expensive, alternative (electrical?) sources of mobile power.

The theoretical advantage to a carbon tax is that it is a _consumption_ tax and is, therefore, _voluntary_* somewhat _discretionary_. Some people (many? even most?) can reduce their tax burden by changing how they use carbon based energy and they can, by their actions (including votes), influence public and political opinion about e.g. nuclear energy. (I also recognize that, for now, anyway, someone living in a rural area is likely to find an electric car wholly impractical. (S)he is pretty much restricted to a big, gas guzzling (and highly taxed) pickup truck.)

As a matter of _principle_ I would like to see more and more and more _consumption_ taxes ~ always offsetting income taxes which should be reduced to zero for the lowest, then lower, then low and then lower middle and even middle income earners. (I know that the poor use → 99% of their income for consumption and the rich use only ← 1% of theirs, but the rich then save (invest) their income and that creates jobs for the (relatively) poor.) 

_____
* We do have 'voluntary' taxes: lotteries ~ that's what Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau called the first big, million dollar (Olympic) lottery in Canada back in the 1970s.


----------



## Edward Campbell (25 Jun 2014)

The German _Energiewende_, is a big, complex and expensive programme to _promote_ green energy and, concomitantly, reduce carbon use. A carbon tax would, probably, do much (most of?) the same at lower coasts and, indeed, with a revenue boost.

Have a look at what's happening in Germany in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the _Financial Times_:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/2ebd0eb4-ed6f-11e3-8a1e-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=intl#axzz35Yl1ZM2u


> Germany’s green energy transformation
> 
> By Jeevan Vasagar
> 
> ...




The _Energiewende_ aims to change behaviours by providing cheap alternatives to carbon based fuels for many applications; a carbon tax aims to change behaviours around energy use by punishing people who use carbon based energy when a _better_ (and eventually cheaper) alternative is available. In the end neither aims to stop or even reduce carbon use; both aim to make the most *efective* use of carbon based energy.


----------



## Rocky Mountains (25 Jun 2014)

"For an hour at lunchtime on Sunday May 11, wind and solar energy accounted for 70 per cent of the national electricity supply, illustrating the transformation brought about in Germany’s energy system."

While this was happening coal fired power plants remained on standby with a full head of steam ready to go online if the wind died or clouds developed.  Same with nuke plants.  You can't just flick them on and off.

That is the economic fallacy of solar and wind power.  They require 100 % backup.  Europe has the embarrassing situation of old people freezing to death because power prices have spiked geometrically.


----------



## a_majoor (25 Jun 2014)

And of course Ontario has been "reducing carbon" by building a series of natural gas powered turbine generators that must run 24/7 on "hot idle" to pick up the slack whenever the wind fluctuates. These aren't cheap either, it cost the taxpayer a billion or so dollars when the Liberals cancelled two in order to retain two riding's (the election before McGuinty resigned and vanished from the political landscape).

And as noted the thermal and nuclear plants must vent steam, and hydro plants spill water over the sluiceways if wind power picks up during the none peak times, in order to keep the grid stable. If the amount of wind power exceeds demand, then the excess is dumped over the border to New York's power authority for $.04 kW/H, even though the wind energy is purchased for $.135 kW/H (and the electrical energy is sold to ratepayers for $.08 kW/H)


----------



## George Wallace (25 Jun 2014)

70% ???

Are you sure?


Ontario only produces 5.6% of its electricity by wind power.  http://ieso-public.sharepoint.com/Pages/Power-Data/Supply.aspx

I think you will find similar percentages in Europe as well.


----------



## Edward Campbell (25 Jun 2014)

George Wallace said:
			
		

> 70% ???
> 
> Are you sure?
> 
> ...


----------



## George Wallace (25 Jun 2014)

All these "Green" electricity systems are great......for powering your cottage or some small requirements, but for major urban centers they are not efficient enough yet.....We have a long way to go before they will ever be economical.


----------



## Brad Sallows (26 Jun 2014)

Attaching costs to externalities is a good idea, but the costs will be passed along.  Every additional cost to an end consumer is an opportunity cost.  The potential effects should be wargamed in advance.

A revenue-neutral tax shift might be acceptable.  Stephane Dion tried to sell his "green shift" as revenue-neutral, but it wasn't.  He was trying to set a little extra pot of money aside for new spending.  Perhaps he misspoke and meant deficit-neutral, but if so, he misspoke repeatedly.

A problem with consumption tax increases offset by income tax reductions is that people with lower incomes who pay little or no income tax usually consume with almost all of their income.  The burden falls unequally.

We can't conserve our way to prosperity.  I understand why utilities encourage customers on their turf to conserve energy - the utilities presumably can charge more for whatever they can sell to customers further abroad.

Arithmetic matters.  From my perspective, people looking to wind and ground-based solar do not grasp the magnitude of what must be done and are not intellectually serious.  Perhaps they are merely innumerate or incurious.  It doesn't matter.  Energy policy isn't a realm suited to qualitative discussion.  People who want to move away from fossil fuels need to calculate the energy budget for replacement, and then calculate what is practical for all of the alternatives, not merely the ones which are socially fashionable and acceptable.  Some will wake up and some will curl up in catatonic denial, occasionally muttering "wind".


----------



## Kat Stevens (26 Jun 2014)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> I like the analogy but it might be 180o out of phase. The purpose of dispensations was to recognize than we, humans, are very, very fallible and need some forgiveness, etc. _Sin taxes_, on the other hand, say that, given an appropriate _incentive_ (a punishment in the case of tax) people can be _persuaded_ to change their behavior ~ a "go forth and sin no more" sort of thing.
> 
> But the real aim of a carbon tax, as I read Hank Paulson's notion, is to make the most *efficient* (in economic terms) use of the available energy resources. Gasoline, refined from crude oil, for example, is, currently, the most _efficient_ form of fuel for mobile applications. Crude oil and heavy oil (oil sands, etc) are both thought to be available in finite quantities so we should both *a)* _reserve_ it for mobile (mainly transportation) applications, and *b)* encourage, by making gasoline more expensive, alternative (electrical?) sources of mobile power.
> 
> ...



I get the theory of it, Edward, but it seems to me that the ones who can afford this least will be effected the most.  The single mom with four kids who has to drive her 88 sunfire to her three jobs is consuming a disproportionate amount of fuel in order to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.  A bit of a dramatization (how many 88 sunfires are still on the road?) but you see my point.


----------



## Edward Campbell (26 Jun 2014)

Yes, indeed, I do see your point, and Brad made a similar one (which I acknowledged earlier) that the poorest are always hit, disproportionately, harder by any tax.

_Some_ taxes are an essential part of maintaining the society in which we have all agreed to live. I, personally, and with a cold, cruel, _Scrooge_ like heart, favour consumption taxes over income taxes ... although I fully support income taxes on incomes over $_nn,nnn.nn_. I think *a)* there is always some, however small, measure of _discretion_ in consumption taxes (consume less ≈ pay less in taxes); and *b)* untaxed income is, generally, saved and invested, often (mostly?) in Canada, and becomes an _engine_ of job creation.


----------



## Sub_Guy (28 Jun 2014)

Fun with numbers!

699 Megatonnes (699,000,000 tonnes) Canada's annual CO2 output.

397,000,000 Hectares (981,749,674 acres) of forests in Canada

2.6 Tonnes of CO2 absorbed per acre of mature trees

So of the 699,000,000 tonnes of CO2 emitted from Canadians 2,552,549,152.4 tonnes of CO2 is captured by our forests.

Which means Canada is well beyond carbon neutral!   Which also means the carbon tax is a shit idea


----------



## Rocky Mountains (28 Jun 2014)

Our wood frame housing is also a massive carbon sink.  One thing to remember.  Canada is not very industrialized.  Big production of CO2 is in heating our homes and in transportation.  Taxing demand that is inelastic may not change behavior as much as hoped.


----------



## ModlrMike (28 Jun 2014)

Where we fall behind is in our per capita hydrocarbon use, which is what the green lobby frequently uses to paint us as villains. That being said, I refuse to sit in my cold and dark house in a Winnipeg winter just because some latent hippy in Califonia says I use too much energy.


----------



## Edward Campbell (28 Jun 2014)

The important word in the expression 'carbon tax' is *tax*, not carbon. The reason for a carbon tax, as opposed to, say, a water/hydro or insecticide tax is that it aims to encourage the _optimal_ (in economic terms) use of an important finite resource.


----------



## YZT580 (28 Jun 2014)

Ontario has gone into the have not category and one of the major contributing factors has been energy costs inflated due to the green policy.  GM is reducing production.  U.S. steel is trying to pull out of Hamilton.  Heinz bailed out of Leamington.  It costs too damn much to buy power so they move their operations to lower cost locales.  Add a carbon tax and you will soon be able to use vast areas of previously prosperous Canadian cities for urban warfare training.  And all for nothing.  Even the U.N. admits that the carbon reduction programme is a failure and will never stop temperatures from rising.  Hell, one volcano eruption puts more carbon into the air than all the coal fired power plants in China.  Australia figured that out, why can't we?


----------



## RangerRay (29 Jun 2014)

Kat Stevens said:
			
		

> I get the theory of it, Edward, but it seems to me that the ones who can afford this least will be effected the most.  The single mom with four kids who has to drive her 88 sunfire to her three jobs is consuming a disproportionate amount of fuel in order to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.  A bit of a dramatization (how many 88 sunfires are still on the road?) but you see my point.



As well, this hurts rural, resource industry and agriculture dependent areas much more disproportionately than urban areas.  In many of these areas, people have to drive long distances with heavy duty pick-ups to work.  A hybrid won't cut it.  Public transit is non-existent or a joke.  Even in larger communities with a transit system, they only have a couple of inefficient routes that take people much longer to get to work than driving, or even in some cases, walking.  And unlike flat Copenhagen, Amsterdam, or downtown Vancouver, biking to work in the Interior BC requires being a fairly fit individual, what with all the hills and all.  Again, not a mode of transportation for everybody.

Not to mention the taxes added to heating costs and the transportation of goods.  I mean, this is Canada after all.  Unlike Vancouver, it gets cold in winter.  It's a big, cold, sparsely populated country.  We can't shrink it and give it the climate of California.  

I understand the academic argument for the carbon tax, but the reality is quite harmful, IMHO.


----------



## Edward Campbell (7 Sep 2015)

E.R. Campbell said:
			
		

> The important word in the expression 'carbon tax' is *tax*, not carbon. The reason for a carbon tax, as opposed to, say, a water/hydro or insecticide tax is that it aims to encourage the _optimal_ (in economic terms) use of an important finite resource.




Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act are Canadian business executive's Gwyn Morgan's thoughts on the _real_ problem with carbon use:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/executive-insight/blame-fossil-fuel-users-not-producers-for-greenhouse-gas-emissions/article26240389/


> Blame fossil fuel users – not producers for greenhouse gas emissions
> 
> SUBSCRIBERS ONLY
> 
> ...




_I think_ that all those university professors and church leaders and Messers Mulcair and Trudeau and their acolytes, too, understand fully what Gwyn Morgan is saying: if we want (or need) to constrain carbon emission then we need to make the end user change his/her habits. If one doesn't understand that simple, basic fact then one is stupid. The university professors and church leaders and our political leaders are not stupid people, quite the contrary, in fact ... so why do they persists in blaming _supply_ when _demand_ is the real problem? In my opinion it is because the professors, priests and politicians ~ specifically Thomas Mulcair and Justin Trudeau ~ are _dishonest_. _They are lying_ because they are smart enough to know what we don't want to deal with the truth ...

                    
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	




Now, for the record, I do not favour any new taxes; Canada has a spending problem; it doesn't need more, new income. I seriously oppose cap and trade regimes for carbon "pricing" because _I believe_ that all it does is create new, useless bureaucracies. But (there's always a "but," isn't there?) if (Big IF) carbon use (let's say petroleum use) is a problem then we know, from experience, that raising the price ~ by taxing it ~ will limit its use and, more importantly, focus its use on the most _productive_ things.


----------



## ModlrMike (7 Sep 2015)

Jim Prentice told Albertans the truth. How'd that work out for him?


----------



## YZT580 (7 Sep 2015)

carbon tax=loss of industry
carbon tax=higher prices, there is no such thing as a neutral tax
carbon tax=opportunities for fraud, theft, embezzlement

above 3 facts are proven.  Witness the shuttered factories in every country that has implemented it.


----------



## Alberta Bound (7 Sep 2015)

Jim Prentiss told Albertans the economic state of the province was all their fault for voting the PCs in for all those years. Albertans essentially got what they deserved he said. Truth? I suppose. So he gave Albertans two choices. Vote in the PCs in again, give him the mandate that he wanted to do whatever he wanted and live with the consequences. Or vote out the PCs. 
Prentice got exactly what he told Albertans to do. He just didn't expect option B. 

As far as carbon tax, Prentice had a chance to make changes, it was expected he would make changes and instead he said he wasn't happy with his plans yet and would do something after the election. So he ended up doing nothing.


----------



## suffolkowner (7 Sep 2015)

The problem with a carbon tax is there is a limit to how high you can go before providing non-implementing jurisdictions a trade advantage. The numbers I have read suggest that this is somewhere below $20/tonne. Thus have all Kyoto type deals stalled; words and promises with no binding implementation plan. All taxes are transferred downstream eventually. The purpose of a carbon tax has always been about reducing demand. Having spent over $50000 a month on hydro in Ontario I'd sure like to see the hydro bills that drove these companies out of Ontario. I can guarantee that wages and tax subsidies are what caused the move. Most industrial users are/were paying 0.02 per kva


----------



## Rocky Mountains (7 Sep 2015)

Whenever discussing CO2 reductions, there always seems to be a bias against Alberta.  Production of hydrocarbons is irrelevant to high CO2 levels.  Limiting consumption of hydrocarbons is the problem.  If people are serious about limiting CO2 production, hydrocarbons should be taxed as close to the point of consumption as possible.  The home heating for widows and orphans should be taxed on the same CO2 basis as fuel through a $100,000 SUV.  Alberta's oil industry should have no carbon tax at all.


----------

