So this article came across my screen yesterday, it was months old but new to me. The argument is that Canada is a carbon-neutral country.
The idea, put forward by F. Larry Martin, a retired senior civil servant, is that Canada absorbs more carbon dioxide than we emit due to our forests, farmland etc.
I called up Mr. Martin and had him on radio. I think you will enjoy the chat.
http://bit.ly/2hwoW0t
Absolutely!
Canada’s forests absorb twice as much CO2 as Canadians emit.
I’ve often wondered why this hasn’t been factored in.
And because I CARE so MUCH aboot my fellow Canadians … I have been doing everything possible to expand my carbon footprint to gargantuan proportions. I BUY lots of “things” that get delivered by truck. I heat my house to a whopping 68 deg. F. … for two hours every day. I drive an internal combustion engine auto. I own 3 autos … for 2 people! I eat meat. My house has 5 bedrooms … when I only “need” 2. I use more than 2 squares of TP per wipe … And I look forward to paying Canada as many “indulgence” dollars to Canada as Al Gore pays. Because … well … the exchange rate is quite favorable. And I feel very proud to transfer my personal wealth to First Nations Canadians.
The concept of Carbon Tax brings forward the Question of How is it going to be gathered and remain Fair? The Canadians living in Northern Canada will be penalized significantly more than the Canadians living in areas where Spring arrives earlier than the Arctic Circle residents.
Does this mean Equalization Funding will require an amending formula to recognize this?
Will there be an additional Bureaucracy established to gather in the Tax-Dollars? Will it be a Social Issue, even if a Province refuses to sign in. Will a Province be able to Use the Not-Withstanding aspect of the 1981-82 Faux Constitution of Canada?
What happens to the H.S.T if a Not-Withstanding Province excludes such a Tax placed within the Harmoniized Services & Goods Tax? (HST) Surley the Carbon Tax will also be applied to “Services” as well as the “Goods” component of this disparately applied by fiat arbitrarily applied depending on Geography and Geopolitical division in such a broad Country.
Is this why the Present Trudeau Government is ignoring the more than 60 % of Canadian who feel this is an absolute Unfair Tax-Grab?
What will be the avenues of Appeal if the Purchase of Goods is penalized and not the Purchase of Services leads to Citizen Protests by refusing to pay such Discrimination against a Person’s means of Employment?
Is the Carbon Tax Concept based on Discriminatory Premise?
The discrimination, recognized by Majority of Canadian Citizens, as enhancing the Life Style of the Urban & Elite Cultures over those employed in the Goods industry, within the Reality Canada’s Culture as it now stands is a Carbon Net Absorbing Culture.
You-all just don’t get it. YES Canadians’re carbon-neutral – but the whole point is to become carbon-negative; to take-in more carbon than we emit. Then, while we’re freezing in the dark, we can all feel so VIRTUOUS!!!
/sarc
You-all just don’t get it. YES Canadians’re carbon-neutral – but the whole point is to become carbon-negative; to take-in more carbon than we emit. Then, while we’re freezing in the dark, we can all feel so VIRTUOUS!!!
/sarc
Canadas total emissions are around 1.6% of world wide human emissions.
China will add another Canada of emissions in the next three months, so will India…
Our contribution IS insignificant, yet our politicians want to take another 8 billion dollars from us in a futile attempt to save the planet.
The method will be an exclusive cap and trade stock market for rich elite Liberal-socialists, paid for by the poor…Suckers!!
Can you say Corrupt!!
The only question we should be asking our politicians is…
When do we go to war with the planet destroyers China and India?
Since that must become the ultimate endgame here.
I read that Canada absorbs more carbon than it produces quite awhile ago in a newspaper – likely National Post. Wish I had kept the article. Since I had never heard/read that previously I checked with two knowledgeable folks. One a retired forestry economist with the Alberta Government – he agreed. The other was a Professor at a college who is a global warming believer however he agreed Canada absorbs more carbon that we produce.
I also wonder why this is not a headline?
I have stated this to friends and on twitter – you get lots of folks telling you what a idiot you are.
Canada is not the problem, in fact we are part of the solution – will someone please get articles published in the MSM.
The only carbon tax should be one an import tax on goods produced using coal power.
Goods produced in Canada where Hydro or natural gas or nuclear are the primary energy sources should get a credit.
Wanna bet all the lobbying Trudeau listens to is centered around the Chinese destorying the manufacturing and resource sector in Canada and giving the Chinese a free ride.
How about we just stop all this tax bullshit, fire half the very useless public service and get on with the real business of resource supply, worthwhile innovation and fair competition?
Eveyone, you’ve been asking why this isn’t a headline. This is old, old news for veterans in the climate wars. This came up in 1999-2003 during the UNFCCC COP conferences. It was supposed to be included in a side agreement to the Kyoto Protocol called LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change, Forestry). In short, the other parties, specifically Europe and China + G77 refused to include it, and the other parties of the Umbrella Group, specifically Japan, declined to support the Canadian proposal.
The US could do nothing to support it, because the US was not party to the Kyoto Protocol.
The reason the others did not back it was because North American is a large net absorber of CO2 (not just Canada). The whole point of Kyoto was to put crimps in North American economic growth, so LULUCF was not allowed to go through as originally configured.
Jean Chretien was not entirely stupid when he signed onto Kyoto Protocol. He and his principal advisors knew that LULUCF would more than compensate for any increase in Canadian emissions. All the other nations saw this too, that Canada would get off scot-free, and so lobbied heavily against it.
William in Ajax: “Our contribution IS insignificant, yet our politicians want to take another 8 billion dollars from us in a futile attempt to save the planet.”
Ah, but they get our money to rule us with and get brownie points from their globalist Soros type lefty hypocrite sycophants.
This is not an environmental issue. It’s a government revenue one.
The governments in Canada, and around the world, do not have a long term financially sustainable outlook. It would be very difficult for them to come to the citizenry and tell us they are going to increase income tax, sale tax, alcohol tax, gasoline tax, user fees, etc because they mismanaged the money box.
Hence the carbon tax. Now they can come to us for more because it is not their fault, it is ours. It is our fault that the world is in a mess. It is our fault the arctic ice is disappearing, oceans are rising, people are dying, and the ski season is shorter.
Tax everyone and that teaches us a lesson. It’s a virtuous one. A moral one.
And puts a few more bucks in their coffers to distribute to those they wish to make dependent upon the state, ensuring political support in perpetuity.
The issue is of creating an opportunity for graft, theft and all sort of criminal activity which has already been proven in Europe. Carbon credits are ultimate fugazzi in mobster’s paradise.
For some reason it counts for Russia but not for Canada.
I live on 145 acres. Every year my trees put down many times more weight in roots than carbon I burn or is burnt on my behalf. Why am I being taxed for doing the right thing? Because it’s a Liberal/Marxist tax grab and nothing more.
A carbon tax is indeed merely “virtue-signalling” (politicians love this sort of thing).
I vote(d) for THAT !
Yes Chretien did ask for consideration for our CO2 sinks, but was denied and signed Kyoto anyway. (Then proceeded to do nothing about it.) So as Canadians, we are supposed to be guilty of earth killing because although our total emissions are tiny, our per capita emissions are near the top. The reason our per capita emissions are large is because we are so spread out, which is why we have so much space acting as a CO2 sink, but we aren’t allowed any credit for that, thus demonstrating that the whole scam is all socialist politics.
I believe this fact was also demonstrated via satellite (Japanese?) measurements. It showed that from April to November Canada is a huge net CO2 sink, and a minor source during winter.
I wish everyone would stop talking about carbon dioxide as though it were a poison. Life on Earth would cease to exist without it.
If anything we could stand to have more carbon dioxide.
Global warming is a BS scheme to increase governments take of the economic pie. The advocates usually, directly benefit from the skim. This type of thing has been going on since man was in caves. To some extent the dif now is that people cannot relate these so called weather impacts to their real world. ‘It is hot out’ so it has to be global warming.
A huge portion of the population do not want to think for themselves and take comfort in being told what to believe and do. Sad and dangerous.
The problem with this argument is that it still based on – and therefore gives credibility to – the bullshit premise that our CO2 emissions are causing an apocalypse. It is a failure to confront the BIG LIE.
No, Greg, it’s worse than that. Kyoto was intended to cramp North American development in the interests of the EU. And it was to subsidize development in the G-77 via the emissions trading mechanisms. To get the timeline straight, Canada ratified Kyoto in 2002 while discussions over LULUCF were still going on. The final rejection of Canada’s LULUCF proposal came about 2004 if memory serves me correctly.
As I said before, this was really all about regulating industrial nations’ economic growth using CO2 as the control lever.
Having to pay a carbon tax is bad enough. It is especially galling to have all those Liberal voting idiots behaving as though we are actually doing something for the climate. When will people start thinking for themselves. Why has the government not been open about how much this will cost the economy? It is dumb, dumb — but too many Canadians still are deceived.
My comment with links got trapped. Google “china coal power expansion” or “china coal power pakistan,africa,…”
“They should be paying us!”
If we had a military we could even enforce it.
Otherwise Canadians will continue to grind away as the global doormat, knowing full well that we are the laughing stock of the world – At least on days we forget to take our meds and slip out of little delusional multicultural bubble world.
I will continue to repeat what I firmly believe is the driving factor behind governments supposed buy-in to the climate change agenda; THEY NEED THE GODDAMNED MONEY!
Successive governments have lined the pockets of themselves and their cronies,built up a massive civil service with thousands retiring every year and collecting fat FAT pensions,and there is little revenue coming in because we lost the second tier of a successful economy: manufacturing.
It has nothing to do with ideology or the alleged stupidity of politicians,although there’s plenty of that to go around, but a realization that we’re up to our rectums in debt and the only way they can recover enough tax revenue to continue the charade is to either raise taxes or invent new ones.
The beauty of AGW/CC is that they can cloak themselves in the moral superiority of trying to save the planet, while fooling the credulous into believing they are committed to a noble cause.
The perpetrators of the whole scam are currently desperate due to the incoming U.S. Prez and his disdain for what he knows is pure bullshit.Al Gore’s meeting with Trump was undoubtedly to try and get him on board,but it’s pretty difficult to bribe a billionaire.
We are going to get a carbon tax, and they’ll raise it each year until so many people freeze to death, coroners will be hard pressed to explain the huge number of “heart attacks” that is killing our seniors. It’ll be as bad as the good old days in the USSR,when every dissident expired suddenly,of a hear attack.
It isn’t about saving the planet, it’s all about money, and our governments are desperate for more of it to keep the party going.
Green theocracies want their subjects to become serfs and the war on CO2 is that piety that commands us to march in lock-step as we self-flagellate. Canada’s net carbon sink is a natural bounty that our betters have assigned to the rest of the planet while we must shut up and beat ourselves according to scripture. We are too prosperous and we need to feel guilty and serve our robbed masters by becoming less so. The Spawn and his Butts have declared it so! And as a nation of sheep, we voted for it!
Everyone should be writing PM Trudeau along with a letter to their MP’s on this subject of carbon balance CO2 absorption. Which is CO2 – CARBON NEUTRAL, we shouldn’t have to pay anything others should be paying us!! As others have said in the comments this is a tax grab, as the LIBERAL’s have over spent!!
Just to prove the hypocrisy of our dear Nutley, the only budget line she cut was the forest fire line, totally mismanaging the water bomber contract. If she was so concerned about carbon, wouldn’t that be the one budget line you would increase.
Exactly true.
A fair, honest and effective CarbonTax would set the tax rate for any product based on the percent of global GHGs emitted by the country where the product was made. For example, products from China would be taxed at 29%, made in USofA: 15%, India/Bangladesh: 6%. Those countries are responsible for half the human-caused toxic pollution on earth. Their governments set the policies that let polluters in that country profit.
Canada produces about 2% of the global GHGs, so products made in Canada would be taxed at that rate. Consumers should actually pay for their share of the global pollution caused by their demand for more cheap ‘stuff’. Products from countries that don’t pollute the planet would have a market advantage over products from countries that cause the most harm to the earth.
Any fuel tax imposed across-the-board is nothing more than another blatant increase in the GST, regardless of how they choose to label it for consumer consumption.
In New Brunswick the Irving empire owns 90% of the Media and have yet to print one article disputing the need for a “carbon adjustment”.
They also own major forestry companies cutting vast amounts of NB trees for export to the US.
These exports returned $68 million to the provincial coffers.
The province then spent $75 million “managing” the forests.
Given:
1.The provincial Liberals number one plank is job creation
2.The Provincial Liberals have raised personal income tax rates to 58.75%, raised the HST to 15%, raised property taxes, raised every fee possible, have happily agreed to a Green Tax etc, it is obvious they could care less about number 1.
3.That trees capture carbon
4.The Irvings don’t care how much Liberals tax NBers
5. The forestry industry costs NB money
6. Jobs really don’t matter, deficits don’t matter, debt doesn’t matter
7. Shut down the forestry industry now!
There is only one question; why does the Canadian public tolerate these idiots and keep voting them into office?
Do you want the answer? The public DOES NOT CARE. They have no interest in what any politician does.
Yes it is really that simple.
Canadians are the Lab Rats… Canada has always supported Taxes (the price of being a subject of the Crown) The attitude difference regarding Taxes between USA & Canada is huge… Just shut up & count the Coal cars and pay up.. When Canadians
breakaway from their moronic dependence on the rights of Government… The Globalist will know they went to far….
Climatard
https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/15230686_1333545456696699_2813574114261818648_n.jpg?oh=3b4832e48a904775c69b27abb3b551b3&oe=58E4BE43
some may recognize him
“…Will there be an additional Bureaucracy established to gather in the Tax-Dollars? …”
I don’t know if it will be to gather in the Tax-Dollars, but there will always be an additional bureaucracy.
Logging in Canada today is 6% over sustainable harvest and the net loss of CO2 capture as a result of these trees being removed exceeds the total amount of carbon produced by burning of fossil fuel’s. Funny how this is never mentioned anywhere.
My fellow Canadians, you are buying into a lie regarding our energy industry and the global environment. We are a mere 35 million people, just 0.5% of this planet’s 7.3 billion population. Our country covers roughly 10 million square kilometres of which probably 90% is realistically uninhabitable (explaining why over 80% of our population live in urban centres within 200 kms of the U.S. border)
We endure temperature extremes ranging from -40C or colder to 35C or warmer. Out of necessity we need to heat our homes for 6+ months the year. We face major transportation challenges simply because of the geography of our country. Yet, through all this we are responsible for less than 0.5% of the pollution generated globally.
We ARE NOT the problem! If every one of us here in Canada chose to sacrifice ourselves for the betterment of mother earth and self-terminated, the positive effect on the global environment would be…..drum roll please……zero!
The global effect would actually be negative because we are one of the most ethical, environmentally responsible producers of energy in the world! If we were out of the picture the U.S. would be mining our oil sands before our corpses had even started giving off methane gas. They would then proceed to build the biggest pipeline imaginable, from Fort Mac to Texas.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at some facts. The U.S. has no problem with pipelines; U.S. pipelines that is. They actually have over 3.2 ‘million’ kilometres of liquid petroleum and natural gas pipelines already. There’s also the 1300 kilometre, 122cm (48 inch) line running from Prudhoe Bay to the Valdez Marine Terminal (yes, big bad oil tankers). You are aware, aren’t you, of the Trans Alaskan pipeline running directly through the pristine heart of that beautiful state?
As of 2010, 16 ‘BILLION’ Barrels of oil had been transported through this U.S. pipeline and terminal. The U.S. also has no problem drilling for oil in the Atlantic ocean, the Pacific ocean, the Arctic ocean or the Gulf of Mexico yet they have the audacity to condemn Canada for mining our oil sands in northern Alberta and Saskatchewan?
The opposition to our Canadian energy development is a well-organized attempt to keep our Canadian oil land locked so that we are forced to sell to the U.S. and to the U.S. only and then at a very discounted price. The U.S. is attempting and succeeding in preventing us from marketing our own natural resources globally to the highest bidder. U.S. foundations (HP, Tides – THE ROCKEFELLERS – et al) are funding the opposition to our oil sands and contrary to popular belief it has absolutely nothing to do with threats to the environment.
If they really were that concerned about our planet why are they not protesting the real polluters, the real threats to our environment? China, the world’s worst polluter (besides having a tragic human rights record)? No protests.
Why isn’t David Suzuki over in Beijing chastising Jinping? What about the other major polluters? Russia? The U.S. themselves? India? I can understand a Canadian that is benefiting financially, who is receiving grants to oppose or protest or hamstring our own resource development. What I can’t understand is the rest of my fellow Canadians buying into their bovine excrement.
In the oil sands, our very own Canadian oil sands, we have the 3rd largest proven crude oil reserve in the world, behind only Saudi Arabia and Venezuela – again, both with ‘stellar’ human and women’s rights track records. EVERY person in Canada, and EVERY province and territory in Canada has benefited tremendously, whether directly, indirectly or both from our oil sands development.
Over the next 25 years the oil sands has the potential to generate over $1.5 TRILLION in federal and provincial taxes and royalties. Of course Quebec will need their share – but, oh yeah, they don’t want a pipeline either! There is the potential for well over 500,000 direct and indirect jobs.
So here’s the deal my fellow Canadians. I fear our Canadian ‘goose that lays the golden egg’ is suffering the death by a thousand cuts. Alas, it may already be too late. Maybe it’s already on life support. If you share the views of the Gore’s, the Suzuki’s, and the Obama’s of the world, that our Canadian energy producers and those that work in this industry are bad and evil and a scourge on the Earth, a blight on Canada’s reputation in the global community then fine, stick your fork into the goose as well but please do not whine and complain 10 or 15 years down the road when the wait time for your hip replacement is 3-5 years because our health care system is underfunded and there’s a severe shortage of doctors and nurses in the system. Meanwhile, the Suzukis and their ilk will be flying down to the Mayo clinic in a big bad fossil fuel burning jet for their medical needs.
Don’t whine and complain when your grandchild’s class has a 50:1 student to teacher ratio because our education system is underfunded and the government coffers are bare. Of course the Suzuki grandchildren will be in private schools so no problem there. Don’t whine and complain when your city’s infrastructure is decaying and falling apart and there’s no money to repair it. Instead of whining and complaining, make sure you look into the mirror and realize you believed a lie that has cost this incredible country and our future generations an amazing opportunity to prosper and grow.
Randy Pompetti — Hanna, Alberta, Canada
As some have already mentioned, it is not about “saving the planet”, it is about de-industrializing Canada and making Maurice Strong’s dream come true.
John Galt, that was a great letter/commentary. It will be lost on most of our leadership though as they have a vested interest in shutting down our resource development or at least hamstringing it. For some like the NDP it is ideological in that they want everyone dependent on government like their Soviet fore-bearers, for some, like the Laurentian Elite it is about breaking the west. For some, like the stupid Justin Trudeau, it is, well who knows in his pea brain what the reason is, but for his handler Butts, it is anti-human shutting down of all resource development and the slow death of people. Remember where Butts came from, the anti-human WWF organization.
there will be nothing fair about a carbon tax, it will be theft pure and simple. some of these captchas are getting as long as my posts.
Here John : The Financial Post F. Larry Martin “Canada may already be carbon neutral, so why are we keeping it a secret? ” Wed. March 2, 2016
from that article:
A conservative estimate of Canada’s existing carbon-absorption capacity, based on land area and the global carbon-absorption average, indicates that Canada could already be absorbing 20 to 30 per cent more CO2 than we emit. Using the same calculation, the “Big Four” polluters of China, the U.S., the European Union, and India, which together are responsible for a whopping 60 per cent of global CO2 emissions, release 10 times more CO2 than their combined land area absorbs. Canada doesn’t seem very dirty now, do we?
Hi CGH. I am writing on behalf of Larry Martin, the author of ‘Canada may already be carbon neutral, so why are we keeping it a secret?’
Larry is very interested in speaking with you about your informed perspective and sources you have for this info. Can you please let me know how to get a hold of you? everett [at] everettmartin [dot] com. Thanks!