More carbon taxes...
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's federal Liberal government has unilateral announced they will be imposing a mandatory tax or cap-and-trade on carbon pollution and all the provinces must comply.
Carbon is an essential gas and building block of all life on the planet. Our bodies are comprised of 18% carbon. How it ended up being considered a pollutant is a recent redefinition, due in part, to the opinion of many scientists that believe too much production of the gas could cause climate change.
Essentially Trudeau has put the premiers on notice to adopt a carbon tax of $10 a tonne in 2018 and increase it to $50 a tonne by 2022 or Ottawa will impose its own.
Alberta's carbon tax plan, which starts in 2107, calls for a $20 per tonne tax and increases to $30 per tonne in 2018, with no other increases planned. Albertan's will now be hit with an increase to $50 per tonne tax by 2022.
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Ottawa claims the revenues will be returned to the provinces and that the additional tax money could be used as they see fit.
In a struggling economy, asking citizens to pay even more taxes without showing any hard facts on the environmental benefit, amounts to little more than economic hobbling of the energy producing provinces. What data has been provided that a Canada-wide tax will impact climate change? And why does it seem every government 'solution' to a problem involves us paying more taxes?
Canada's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions account for less than 1.6% of global GHG emissions and less that 2% of the world's carbon emissions. We are one of the smallest contributors of GHG in the world. Canada is a long, long way down the priority list for stopping climate change, with counties like China producing over 28% of the world's carbon emissions and the US producing over