“Stephane, we didn’t get it done … we didn’t get it done … and we have to get it done!” ~ Michael Grant Ignatieff :
Stephane Dion is again musing about a carbon tax. During his bid for the Liberal leadership in 2006, he called it “bad policy.” Then, last spring, he suggested a carbon tax was a good policy, but not so good that the Liberals should adopt it. Now, Mr. Dion appears to be saying that a carbon tax may be the right policy for the Liberals after all. His most recent flip flop could not come at a better time for the Conservatives. With high gas prices already enraging consumers, Mr. Dion’s idea will be suicidal at the polls.
Last year at this time, gasoline was selling for 75 cents/litre.
Stephane Dion reportedly would like to slap a 50 cent/litre carbon tax in the purpose of saving the planet.
Take a shred of good news out of this people.
Today, gas prices in Edmonton are in the $1.24 per litre range.
According to the Dion logic, all that remains for the planet to be saved is for the pump price to be raised one penny.
That would represent the 50 cent/litre remedy that Dion has been mulling.
Hallelujah, bring it on. One more cent, once more cent … and the planet will be saved.
Liberals and leftards love their “Sin Taxes” !
In their minds Carbon tax is a way of atoning for the SIN of consuming energy … just like tobacco taxes and liquor taxes atone for the sins of indulgence. Same logic for proposals on junk food taxes.
Your right to do what you want to do with your money does not come into play for these tax sucking finger wagging scolds and meddlers.
And if you disagree ….
Force prices down through taxation! Yes, what slogan. I prefer “Tax Guzzlers”
OMMAG:
Damn you!
I was thinking along those same lines last night and trying to formulate some line of argument.
It is definitely a SIN tax, and if you’re a politician who disagrees, David Suzuki will have you thrown in jail.
Dat his not fare!!
da pipples need taxes to meg shurd dat dey do not do da stuff we nod wan them do. for the zample- if we charge them so much for drinks dey will not ave halcohol. and we prevent dat on the reserves
hif we hab the carb on tax den we can go back to bali for free like all of us freeloaders.
“–MARGARET WENTE weighs in on Stéphane:
You have to admit that Mr. Dion’s timing is amazing. Just as fuel prices spike to record highs and the heartland spirals toward a recession, he will set off across the country to sell us on the merits of a carbon tax (oops, “revenue shift”). Although the details are still sketchy, apparently this tax (or “shift”) would be broad-based, and would include home-heating fuel and electricity. If only Mr. Dion opened his own heating bills, he might know why little old ladies on fixed incomes have gone into shock. Their heating bills have already shot up 30 per cent. My guess is that they will not want them to go higher.
“He’s not a coward,” says somebody who knows him well. That’s for sure. Neither was General Custer. And the wrath of Crazy Horse wasn’t much, compared to the brewing rage among the seniors’ lobby. I’m sure those freshly laid-off auto workers in Oshawa will be eager to hear from him too. Perhaps he will persuade them that plunging auto sales are good for the planet. Now they can move to Toronto, get jobs in recycling plants, and take the TTC”
OMMAG – I agree completely. The left is very partial to ‘sin’ taxes. And that’s exactly what the carbon tax is – a sin tax. It says, ‘if you want to use energy, then, pay for it’.
The left is heavily predominant in the soft and safely cocooned govt jobs such as health care, civil service, teaching, transporation etc and etc. These positions are all unionized, pensioned, benefitted to the teeth – so, paying an extra tax doesn’t bother them. After all, their unions will simply demand that their wages go up to cover that extra tax; it’s all taxpayer money.
These people, the left,won’t change their cocooned lifestyle; they retain their SUVs, their energy-intensive homes, their full lifestyle. Oh, they’ll wash their clothes in cold water and purchase ‘organic’ foods.
But they expect The Government to look after all the messy business..of the environment and the poor and the needy etc. They’ll pay an extra tax for all of this (and remember, their wages will increase to cover that tax)..
So the carbon tax will be LOVED by the left. It means above all that they don’t have to be bothered with anything. Big Government can do it all. And the taxpayer will cover the extra costs..
Who will be bothered by the tax? The regular working family who isn’t a part of the massive civil service and bureaucracy, ie, who isn’t funded by the taxpayer but has to made a living in the real world, the competitive world.
So, the carbon tax will be loved by the leftist world – who live their safe, isolate lives, cocooned in the big cities. Dion is after the big city vote of The People Who Don’t Think.
Someone should tell Dion that he’s not actually running for mayor of Toronto – but to be Prime Minister of a mostly suburban Canada. And no matter how many more votes he gets in downtown Toronto with this policy, he’ll still win the same 1 seat he got there last time.
FYI: Here’s an apt quote from Dion – from an interview with Calgary Grit in 2006:
“A carbon tax is not the answer since that only punishes industry. You obviously need tax reform to compliment the carbon market since you need to deal with other types of pollution too. But worldwide, emissions trading has worked far better than carbon taxes and this is the route Canada needs to go down.”
The one time you can understand what he’s saying and he puts his foot in his mouth. Funny.
That’s exactly right ET, Dion is playing to the big city voters who don’t think. The city of Toronto is awash with brain free voting. It’s a Liberal/Left haven of major proportions. Fear has been instilled in the large immigrant population through lies for decades and it continues today.
Can we assume Liberals have polled on this issue and got the message most polled are OK with more taxation?
If ever the Libs get back to power to tax then spend on special interests, there may well be an exodus of young people from the Country.
ET,
As usual you nailed it right on the head…Myself, a white male of 49 yrs of age with a great resume of 30 yrs in the automotive industry (Private sector all my life)currently unemployed in Ontario, all I can find is service sector work anywhere between 9 to 12$’s/hr including shift/weekend work. These jobs are mostly temporary with no benefits through placement agencies.
High taxes and big government are a plague in this country especially in the east and I feel they have contributed to my career’s demise.
I have uprooted my family years ago leaving communist Quebec for socialist Ontario to improve our lives…Now I might have to contemplate moving further west still.
When I hear more demands for more nanny state intervention by people like Dion, this time based on the Global Warming fairy tale I become very irate.
Has big Government with it’s army of smug workers with garanteed jobs/benefits for life gone too far? Why is it that no matter how bad the economy in the true wealth creating private sector struggles there is never any government layoff? Should’nt it be proportional to the amount of private sector tax creation?
Government jobs are not true tax dollar creating, they are tax dollar spending.
Is a revolution inevitable?
How many seats in Toronto. What was the margin of votes for the liberals elected. I noticed that Bob Rae did not get anywhere near the votes Graham received, even if he got a huge percentage of the vote. What if those 20,000 plus liberals that did not vote, vote NDP. As was stated, getting more votes in a riding still gives you only one seat.
It would be simpler to pass a law requiring everyone who “believes in anthropogenic global warming” to stop driving cars.
That would free up the roads for the rest of us.
I fully support this by Dion. It will make the putrefaction of this Nation happen much faster with less causulties in the long run. Destroy the golden goose & bring on a depression.
We may even have a generation left who knew freedom of expression this way. To start a new Republic or Nation based on real freedoms. After this one has degenerated into chaos. The Liberals will escilate the process, I believe.
Under Harper it will be slow decay it seems. How many generations will live under the torch of the thought police, in the guise of tolerance, or non offence till then?
After the Conservative repudiation of free speech in favor of hate laws. This may be disguised genius on the part of the Liberals.
For if the Conservatives can trash Liberty & get away with it , why not the Liberals grabbing the energy Pie to eat? Most Canadians don’t give a fig for Alberta anyway. Besides right thinking Canadians want to support global warming, no matter how many Africans starve. Why not this?
It will not matter anyway after June 30th & the CHRC takes legal control with new powers . Canada will be no more.
As for Conservative advantage this is what I think of that.
I will just point out what no one else seems to want to. The social nuke in the corner so to speak.
The CONSERVETIVE Justice Minister just made the supreme court god the Pharaoh King. Never to be questioned. Solidified anti-democratic laws. Supported a tyrannical parallel legal system that has no checks or balances. No Authority to answer to. Threw out the Magna Charta & 800 years of common law.
The social bomb being : Canada as a free Country by next month will not Exist. That’s it period. Its over. The slow decomposition to Mugabe land begins with vigor. Leading to Dhimitude. This is what the announcement meant, make no mistake. Without news from anywhere, we will become Cuba or North Korea. Next to fall will be the web from government, for our own good of course. For tolerances sake.
It would be simpler to pass a law requiring everyone who “believes in anthropogenic global warming” to stop driving cars.
Great Idea Richard Ball!
George Bush has wastes 1 trillion in Iraq and afghanistan.
Instead he could have invested in a new Manhattan like kind of project:
1- Find a new form of energy. e=mc2
2- Help scientists to develop artificial photosynthesis
With artificial photosynthesis, we could regulate the temperature of the earth by ajusting photosynthesis level on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_photosynthesis
We live in a world where lawyers and MBA kind of people lead government. I think we must change that and create a culture where scientists control governments.
revnant dream – I agree, Nicholson, the Conservative Justice Minister, should be turfed. Kicked out. He’s a leftist Liberal, and against Harper’s own views on the HRCs, and others in the Conservative Cabinet. I’m not as pessimistic as you are; I think that justice and reason will prevail over Liberal leftism.
atheist quebecois separatiste – you keep coming up with new utopian ideas; each time, it’s something that will ‘solve all problems’ and return us to the purity of Eden. Won’t happen; utopias are imaginary.
And if Bush hadn’t invaded Iraq, we’d be in big trouble now, unable to fend off Islamic fascism. Bush was right to go into Iraq; it moved Islamic fascism back into the ME where it belongs. Islamic reform has to be fought over there. Not in the West.
ET @ 1:11: “So, the carbon tax will be loved by the leftist world – who live their safe, isolate lives, cocooned in the big cities. Dion is after the big city vote of The People Who Don’t Think.”
Actually no, not necessarily. Ken Livingstone ran his campaign in London on a strong green, pro-AGW platform and went crashing down to defeat. Throughout the municipal elections, green councilors were nearly wiped off Britain’s political map except in a few locations in Norfolk and Suffolk.
Carbon taxes may indeed be favoured by leftist elites, but to automatically confound that with urban electorates is an error. Queen Street East is not all of Metro Toronto.
Second, never underrate the fundamental hypocrisy or outright ignorance of the average voter. The attached link shows the climate policy chaos in New Zealand. Even though 77 per cent supported ‘urgent action’, the response by the voters was rather different when the plan materialized.
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/05/12/are-kiwis-always-green-even-new-zealand-struggles-with-climate-bills/
The public, led by elites, clamours for action, and then the fun begins when the government bends to popular will and actually does something.
“We live in a world where lawyers and MBA kind of people lead government. I think we must change that and create a culture where scientists control governments.”
Democratic Governments should ONLY be controled BY it’s own citizens FOR it’s own citizens…the problem with the citizens of Canada is that a majority are asleep and do not excercise their democratic duties thus in that respect, the issue of loosing freedom raised by Revnant Dream above should not be surprizing.
George Bush has wastes 1 trillion in Iraq and afghanistan.
I’m sick of hearing this, the money doesnt just dissapear,it is recirculated, even if it ends up in Raytheon or Genereral Dynamics pockets thier share price goes up. As well they will end up buying some aluminium or such for a missile and presto it goes to Alcan. Chances are you are personally benifiting financially from this war.
Do you SDA folks consider David Frum a “leftard”? I just finished reading “Comeback”, and he makes a fairly compelling argument for some form of a carbon tax.
So long as income taxes are lowered accordingly (of course I wouldn’t trust Dion to deliver on that part!), where’s the problem in using the tax system to discourage use of non-renewable, pollution creating sources of energy?
You know the world is getting a whole lot weirder when a post by Atheist Quebecois Separatiste partially makes sense.
“The CONSERVETIVE Justice Minister just made the supreme court god the Pharaoh King.”
What is this you speak of Revnant Dream?
Is it linked to the CFR’s demand for the Amero($) by 2010?
Atheist quebecer,
Go invest your own money. Why do you need government to take your money, blow it on beaurocratic boondoggles(gun registry) or steal it(adscam) then spend what’s left on what private industry does better?
Developing sources of ethanol from the incentive of tax cuts have already created starvation scenarios around the world. I would say government is the last one that people should want intervening.
Bob writes:
“I’m sick of hearing this, the money doesnt just dissapear,it is recirculated, even if it ends up in Raytheon or Genereral Dynamics pockets thier share price goes up. As well they will end up buying some aluminium or such for a missile and presto it goes to Alcan. Chances are you are personally benifiting financially from this war.”
So big government is good again?
Does the same logic apply to National Health Care and other expensive social programs, or just things that you like?
No Jim , I just was responding to the 1 trillion being lost concept, just making the point that the money isnt 100% wasted as with the other things you mention.
Jim ,
What part of 40% of $1.25 a litre don’t you understand ?
$1,000,000,000,000
divided by
250,000 Iraqi people killed annually times 5 years
= 1,250,000 total
= $400 per life saved
Does not include uncalculable amount of money and lives saved from no further terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.
Stop a genocide, testiculate the UN, and draw the rats to the poison, as it were. I’d call that a three-fer.
Bill – Point well taken (especially everytime I fill up the van), however I stand by my preference for consumption/SIN taxes versus income/productivity taxes.
If a specific carbon tax (as opposed to the array of current taxes on gas) is made revenue neutral by a real reduction in personal incomes taxes, then I’m all for it.
I’d rather keep more of the money that I work hard to earn and then decide how to spend it!
summom bonum –So the Americans have killed 1.25 million people, 1/20th of the population. Right……….
You are delusional.
Dion alienated his base over the past year because he continued to allow the “evil” Stephen Harper and the Conservatives govern our country. Because these voters are very likely to vote for the NDP or Green Party if the Liberals continue along this path, he decided to promote a policy that will be popular with these voters. Unfortunately for him, the much more moderate Liberals (and independant voters) who would consider voting for the Conservatives are highly likely to be against policy like this; they are all excited about saving the environment as long as it only means that they recycle their pop-cans and take the 1-ton challenge.
Bob,
summom meant the exact opposite of what you read. They spent a trillion dollars to save 1.25 million people from Saddam.
Support for a carbon tax sometimes comes from surprising sources, and not always from the Left. In response to The Rise in the Price of Oil by Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker, blogmate Richard Posner (famous Reaganite judge and legal theorist) offers this:
Why We Should Be Rooting for $200 per Barrel of Oil
Izzy headlines from
CBCpravda, All Khadr All the Time
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/05/13/dallaire-khadr.html
waterboard this guy into admitting what mama khadr and the bag sisters readily brag about.
CBCpravda-you government subsidized POS– we dont give a rats bohouki about this SOB
yes sur, them there Statist Communist Mother-hating Porno-loving Stealing LIEberal Leftards shure luv them sinner taxes.
LIEberal Leftard like these ones in Texas: query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980CE7DE163AF932A15757C0A9629C8B63
Or this communist: http://www.davidfrum.com/, who writes for that Leftard jornal the National Review and even infiltrated the Bush White House!
Or this one: video.aol.com/video-detail/sin-tax/2772839509 who infiltrated the Republican Party.
Or any of these freedom hating socialists: http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=sin+taxes+republican&meta=
Damn them. God damn them all!
And praise those conservatives like Chretien and Martin who actually lowered taxes on cigarettes and other sin taxes.
Jim,
The only point I was trying to make is simple . When gas was 60 cents a litre ( not so long ago ) that approx. 40% that was tax was not so much as the 40% of $1.25 . If any government wants to be serious about emissions the difference between the two prices and corresponding pile of taxpayer loot that goes along with it should be plenty , no ?
How about they put a cap on where they stop taxing fuel , say $1.25 a litre , any extra tax revenue they collect as fuel prices rise they can designate as a carbon tax , and use to fund this carbon foolishness …..
….oh , and for the record revenue neutral BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…gasp..HAHAHAHA!
Anyone who thinks this will be truly revenue neutral is dreaming. A big part of the AGW/Kyoto scam is to transfer money from the west, through the UN and its sticky fingers and then deposit it in the developing world. That money would be going… going… gone, never to be seen again.
The chances that this money makes its way back to the average Canadian taxpayer is about the same as the gas tax going to road repair and the health premium going to patient care. Remember too that this is the same party that promised that the gun registry would pay for itself.
I mean how many times can the government play the same old tax and spend game and still find people gullible enough to believe them. I have yet to see the Liberals (or any government) giving back even close to what they take from the middle class.
It’s a great policy for the Liberals. Run hard with it Dion.
Actually, ted, Chretien lowered taxes on cigarettes, which he first increased, because the black market sales of cigarettes via the native reserves was overwhelming the market. Why pay for high cost cigarettes with those govt taxes when the local reserve was selling them without the tax? That’s why Chretien lowered the tax. He had to; his Adscam govt was losing revenue.
The quote via charles macdonald is filled with unproven assumptions, ie, ‘that global warming exists and is caused by engine emissions; that higher costs of fuel will reduce traffic congestion (says who?), and frankly, dependency on foreign oil (including Canadian oil) will last until a new source of energy is developed by science.
Agree, lynnh – it won’t be ‘revenue neutral’. That’s similar to the Gun Registry, another Liberal fiasco. All that registry does is create bureaucratic jobs; nothing to reduce crime. As for revenue neutral – heh, how are they going to pay for the reams of new bureaucrats to manage it? Can you believe a Liberal? Gun Registry? Get rid of the GST? Adscam?
Fry Khadr.
Repeat if necessary
B.C. got suckered into a carbon scheme and now Dioncitroen is throwing it up. Is mcguilty next?
dizzy moneys payink stobbed pipples yoosen carbom hand nod sinktaps.
[quote]The public, led by elites, clamours for action, and then the fun begins when the government bends to popular will and actually does something.[/quote]
Cgh,
You are going to love the Republican “suck them In” plan for Nov 2008. The brain dead Boxer will get the Senate to commit >12 trillion, Bush will veto, Republicans will then piss all over the “Senate” Democrat AGW Plan & Viola… Bada-bing
irwin daisy :
This is what I meant. You can go to Mark Steyn ‘s blog as well as five feet of fury. Frankly it was a punch in the gut when I learned of the Conservetive defection to the dark side.In effect the “justice Minister said the Supreme court allows these quuasi-legal inquisitions & he could not change this if he wanted to which he does not. He agree’s with section 13.
Justice Minister confirms: truth is no defense for “hate speech”
“I guess that’s why the new totalitarians equate Oriana Fallaci a journalist who told the truth, with Ernst Zundel an anti-Semite who lied because truth does not matter.
“I feel like a coup d’etat has taken place and I have awakened to the aftermath. And this egregious affront to civil rights and to the freedom to speak the truth in Canada is being perpetuated now by the Conservative government.
“Woe is us. I have this awful, awful feeling that we’re too late.”
Indeed.
Ernst Zundel was convicted of “spreading false news.”
On June 2, Mark Steyn will be convicted of “spreading true news.”
What a difference twenty years makes. And we have liberal self-aggrandizing bathroom Nazi hunters and cowardly, careerist Conservative hacks to thank for this, not just arrogant, ignorant Muslim beligerents.
Those of you who’ve been placing your trust and hope in electoral party politics — and not just on this issue — are deluded. By all means continue to write letters and sign petitions, but bear in mind that they will mostly be either ignored or will not be able to change the minds of a sufficient number of time serving cowards.
However, you can always live as we’ve already won:
Write and draw what you will. Step out in faith. Don’t ask for permission first or apologize later.
Change the culture — the Law will catch up later. Or not. But we can’t afford to wait.
You can always get another job. But you only have one conscience.
Actually “set you free”, at this time last year the average price of gasoline in Canada was $1.13 per litre, not 75 cents. It averaged about $1.09 in AB and about $1.065 per litre in Toronto.
Dion’s idea is bad enough to sink all by itself. Don’t try to help it by alluding to easily disproven evidence like gas prices. Dion’s carbon tax, the way its being spun, will mean higher natural gas, heating oil and electricity prices for all Canadians, and the increases will fall heaviest on those with the lowest incomes, as always. That’s all the argument you need.
“It would be simpler to pass a law requiring everyone who “believes in anthropogenic global warming” to stop driving cars.
That would free up the roads for the rest of us.”
Posted by: Richard Ball at May 13, 2008 2:05 PM
Richard, I like your idea. Not because it will free up the roads; it won’t. But it will expose that almost nobody sincerely believes in anthropogenic global warming.
Revnant Dream – I just emailed Harper, Nicholson and my Conservative MP to inform them that, not only was I no longer supporting them financially, they also just lost my vote. And I documented my reasons with quotes from that most odious of documents submitted to the CHRT by our vapid twit of an attorney general.
choker:
See how easy it is to scientifically disprove ridiculous claims?
*
“atheist quebecois separatiste cries out…
1- Find a new form of energy. e=mc2
2- Help scientists to develop artificial
photosynthesis”
yeah, if america can put a man on the moon…
why can’t they do something about those
poor people on ‘gilligan’s island’.
*
almost nobody sincerely believes in anthropogenic global warming.
But they will pay lip service to the notion if it means they won’t be harangued by politically-correct no-hopers who consider it their obligation as “right-thinking” lemmings.
Don’t forget that one major weapon in the social engineering war is to ostracize/silence those who disagree. You have an opinion they don’t like? It’s their job to shout you down and gather allies to gang up on you if need be.
…that Dion ..keeps on giving…
What’s that saying a bout not looking a gift arse in the mouth?
Means nothing, I just thought it sounded clever, in a relativly minor way.
lynnh – Who suggested (in this thread) that the carbon tax would at all be related to or linked with the Kyoto Scam?
You can be against foolish international plans like Kyoto, not buy lock and stock into “global warming” theories, and still believe that we would benefit from reduced reliance on carbon-based fuels.
Again, I wouldn’t trust Dion’s promise to make such a tax revenue neutral, but that doesn’t make the basic concept wrong.
Doesn’t it make more sense to heavily tax non-renewable, polluting fuels, and then reduce punitive taxes on productivity (such as personal income tax)?
The current high prices for oil & natural gas are just the free market equivalent of Dion’s carbon tax, except that there is no carrot at the end, only a stick.
High prices are here to stay, and will go even higher. There was an item below, ‘The Truth about Oil’, where the author argues there is tons of oil around. He’s right, but he neglected the most important aspect, that is, not all oil is created equal. The new and prospective oil sources, deep water, tar sands, oil shale and coal-to-liquid all have one thing in common: high production costs. This is where future production increases will come from, and the price will just keep going up, as ‘conventional’ fields are depleted.
Alberta oil sands account for 14% of the total world proven reserves, but only 1% of the production, even after tens of billions invested. This reflects the challenge of producing large amounts of oil from non-conventional sources, and is also the main argument for the imminence of Peak Oil (big reserves doesn’t equal big production rates).
Most analysts now agree world liquid production (oil + non-conventional) will top at 100 mbpd or even lower (it is currently 86 mbpd) in the next 5-10 years. In other words, there will be more and more of us fighting over a fixed-size energy pie. That means only one thing, even higher prices.
In the end, the best way to deal with high costs is to reduce consumption. That can be done in many ways, from getting rid of the gas-guzzler to moving into a smaller home. This is what a carbon tax would intend to do, but at this time, the market will force it anyway. Dion’s idea is a non-starter.