Editor,
Have you ever wondered… what is the Conservative plan on mitigating climate change? I have and I have not been able to find it. I have requested this of Pierre Poilievre and MP Ruff, but got no lucid answer but I will admit they cherry pick and whine about the liberal plan.
When you have no answers yourself, all you can do is complain about those (most international countries) who are trying to solve the problem.
People like me who support the climate tax, agree with it…NOT…because it’s a good financial opportunity but because it is something we can do. We can’t all afford to replace our ICE cars with EVs, Install solar systems on our houses or replace old furnaces with Heat Pumps, but we can accept a small increase in fossil fuel costs as a way to discourage the use of fossil fuels. We do get most if not all of that direct tax back. It sends a message to consumers and especially to the fossil fuel industry that they are not helping with this huge global problem.
Financial concerns, that’s all PP and Ruff are arguing about. The Conservatives and apparently the PBO assert that in Ontario a family that pays $1,674 in carbon taxes only gets back $1,047 in rebates, resulting in a loss of $627 when you consider fiscal and economic impacts.
What are the fiscal and economic impacts? Like their climate policy, they are not detailed. If the true total cost of climate change (driven by fossil fuel use) were included, the tax would be trivial.
The bizarre and atypical weather we have experienced in the past several years; like extreme wild fires, droughts, crop failures, excessive rain, flooding, ocean warming, more powerful and frequent tornadoes and hurricanes, Antarctic and Greenland ice caps melting, glaciers disappearing causing sea level rise, record numbers of heat related human deaths, impact on wild life etc.. are all directly and indirectly related to increased CO2 pollution cause by fossil fuel combustion. The science is very conclusive and it continues to get worse. But none of this seems to matter to the conservatives.
Canada can not alter global warming by ourselves. PP and Ruff argue that we should get a pass and do nothing because we produce a small percent of the global CO2 pollution. But is that a good reason we should not lead in the effort and do what we can?
Can you see the oil industry smiling at PP and Ruff when they argue that we should spend lots of tax dollars to develop infrastructure to convert our gas to LNG and export it to other countries? It’s better than coal PP and Ruff say. How does exporting our CO2 pollution to other countries help solve the global warming problem. It just puts Canada higher on the list of CO2 offenders. The EU energy minister has recently put Canada on notice saying that LNG from Canada will not sell in the EU.
Bottom line..
There is a good reason why 60% of Canadians do not vote for Conservatives. They say they are on the side of Canadian taxpayers but in reality they are on the side of their investors. Big business, Oil, Coal, Gas producers. Their cherry picking, populist messaging and jingoism hide this reality. “Axe The Tax” is just an empty dumb PP rhetorical device and it hurts us all in the long run by delaying the necessary long term solutions.
Dave MacDougall, Meaford
