Dear editor,
Everyone who enjoys paying taxes put your hands up. Anyone? No, I don’t like it either. And here we have another tax, on carbon this time. Isn’t that just … lovely.
People like Doug Ford, Jason Kenny and Andrew Scheer have other plans to help the environment. They talk about introducing various regulations and targeted incentives to reduce carbon emissions. If they have viable, effective and economical alternatives to carbon pricing I am all ears but so far all we have heard is vague references to plans they might present at some time in the future, I guess. The trouble is if we don’t act very soon there may not be a future.
For now we have a carbon tax with rebates which make it revenue neutral. Carbon pricing has demonstrated its efficacy here in British Columbia and in many other jurisdictions in Canada and around the world. Regulations and incentives would have enormous costs. They would require massive bureaucracies to administer them. Worse yet, these incentives and regulations would be designed by politicians and bureaucrats who would decide what carbon reduction technologies will receive incentives. Taxpayers and businesses would have to do whatever we are told to do to qualify, rather than doing what makes sense for our businesses, our locations and our lifestyles.
We know that dealing with greenhouse emissions is going to be expensive, though arguably much less expensive than not dealing with them. Taxes are unpopular, I get that. The carbon tax is an easy target for populist politicians seeking to stir up anger and discontent in order to gain power. Where are their fully costed, scientifically valid alternative solutions? They campaign as though public policy were a popularity contest. What we need are leaders, not politicians who will do anything to win votes.
Ken Kemper,
Comox