December 2020
“…we’ve learned in the House of Commons, if you repeat it, if you say it louder, if that is your talking point, people will totally believe it.” Then-Environment Minister and noted “intellectual” Catherine McKenna, in May 2019.
Re: “Doug Ford woke up to COVID-19, so why is he still playing dumb about climate change?” (Martin Regg Cohn, 16 Dec):
Where do I start with this one?
Carbon taxes as preached by Justin Trudeau are a fraud. They will not succeed in lowering harmful emissions; advances in technology, cleaner burning fuels and replacement of harmful chemicals with environmentally friendly ones, have done that.
I want to make it very, very clear that everyone wants a clean environment. Not so long ago, we burned fossil fuels with no filters or emission controls. We dumped industrial waste in lakes and rivers, with little care for the damage it did.
We’ve seen the damage that can be done by not having strict environmental standards, and I can’t see anyone tolerating reversing those standards. What comes out of car tailpipes, factory smokestacks and gets dumped into rivers and lakes today is cleaner than it’s ever been and getting better through technological advances. We’re not perfect, but we’re trying. The appetite for allowing industry to pollute without consequences is simply not there.
Environmentalists changed all that, and that’s a very good thing. Back in the 1980s, acid rain was a serious problem to our environment. Environmental action and government regulations eliminated that problem, all without economy-killing taxes.
Does anyone remember the hole in the ozone layer. Governments tackled that problem too, also without economy-killing taxes.
Cohn claims, “Imagine a threat so grave we should have seen it coming, but didn’t.” Well, we actually did. We’ve done an incredible job at reducing the levels of pollution in our environment.
Now we’re told the best way to save us from the “climate emergency” is to pay carbon taxes, which are really a socialist wealth-redistribution scheme. In what universe can anyone believe that “most” people will get back more in rebates than they will pay in carbon taxes? Not only will we pay carbon taxes directly (gas for cars and our homes), we will also pay indirectly, since everything we buy is transported to our stores by plane, train or automobile.
Well, that’s why we should all switch to electric vehicles, you say!
One very inconvenient truth about electric vehicles is that the battery is made using cobalt, a rare-earth mineral mainly found in the Congo, which is carbon intensive to mine. Further, will we be able to properly dispose of or recycle these lithium-ion batteries by the time they reach the end of their life-cycle?
Also, the carbon intensity of producing the batteries can be very high. Two researchers from the Fraser Institute, Elmira Aliakbari and Ashley Steadman, wrote, “Building a car battery for a sport-utility vehicle (1,100 lbs) could emit up to 74% more CO2 than producing an efficient conventional gas-powered car if the battery is manufactured in a coal-powered factory.”
Are we just trading one problem (emissions out the tailpipe) for another problem?
Has anyone thought of what will happen if we stopped buying gasoline, and governments are no longer collecting the gas taxes that are applied to the price every time you fill up at the pumps? We all remember the fuss that was created when Ford cancelled Wynne’s carbon tax, with the usual crowd complaining about the “lost revenue.” In that case, this “lost revenue” meant money that stayed in the pockets of taxpayers.
By the way, for proponents of everything non-oil to use electricity generated by anything other than renewable power would be hypocritical, so have fun charging your electric vehicles and heating your home during the periods when renewables can’t keep up with base load demand.
Same with things made with plastic components, like your cell phone, or nylon, what the tents that the eco-warriors use when blockading pipeline projects are made of, but I digress.
For those who truly believe that paying carbon taxes is the only way to save the planet, may I suggest you send a cheque directly to the government every month and leave the rest of us alone.
Besides the fact that Canada’s emissions are around a paltry 1.6% of world-wide emissions, unless the rest of the world adopts our carbon taxes and emission standards, especially high emitters like China and India, we are simply crippling our economy for little over-all gain.
Of course, some taxes, or fees, can indeed have a positive effect, as with the success of Ontario’s Drive Clean program, a program that required car owners to pass an emission standards test before they could re-new their vehicle permit. Drive Clean was criticized by many as simply a tax grab, especially since owners could get a conditional pass by making minimal repairs to their vehicle (so as to not overburden owners financially). However, in the end, Drive Clean succeeded in reducing emissions by forcing the old, inefficient, oil-burners off the road.
It should also be noted that Doug Ford’s government canceled Drive Clean when it became apparent that it was no longer necessary; when it had actually become an unnecessary tax-grab, something that rarely happens with governments. Is it possible when we finally achieve the environmental utopia of a carbon-free world (something that would be bad for photosynthesis, but I digress), that the governments of the day will cancel their carbon taxes?
Cohn repeats the claim in his column in the Toronto Star, a newspaper that acts as more of a propaganda arm of the Liberal Party of Canada than a genuine newspaper, that, “Most Canadians will continue to be fully rebated for the rising carbon levy — currently 4.4 cents a litre at the gas pump, but increasing to 27.6 cents when it is fully phased in by 2030.“
This is a complete and utter lie, given that this “rebate” will only apply to carbon taxes directly paid by consumers, not the indirect carbon taxes; those being the carbon taxes that will be applied to the production and/or distribution of all the products we buy. These costs will be included in the price of everything we buy, as corporations won’t eat the carbon taxes imposed upon them; they will pass those costs onto the consumers in the form of higher retail prices.
Oh, well these producers and distributors will be encouraged to cut their carbon emissions, including using renewable power sources to power their factories and using electric vehicles to deliver their products to stores, you say. That may happen, not right away, but that may happen, sometime in the future, for those companies who haven’t moved most of their operations to jurisdictions that don’t have a carbon tax.
This is of course, besides the point that very few, if any, people will bother to save every receipt and add them all up each month to determine just how much of the carbon taxes they paid have been rebated back to them. Justin Trudeau is counting on everyone to just trust him that they will be better off financially paying a carbon tax.
Cohn also maintains the alarmist rhetoric that Trudeau is imposing this carbon tax, …”to avoid suffocating the country and the planet.”
Yeah, the thing about that is, as I’ve stated above, we have already done a good job at cleaning up our environment, without suffocating Canadians with unnecessary taxation.
Lastly, I wish all the climate alarmists would stop calling carbon dioxide a “pollutant.” It’s a naturally occurring gas that is essential to all life on earth, and is essential for photosynthesis. The more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the greener the planet literally is, not just figuratively. Experts like Greenpeace co-founder Dr. Patrick Moore, who is an ecologist, argue that the Earth is actually carbon deficient.
Sources: https://examples.yourdictionary.com/what-are-the-7-different-types-of-pollution.html, https://www.britannica.com/science/pollution-environment, https://www.insidehalton.com/opinion-story/10291634-martin-regg-cohn-doug-ford-woke-up-to-covid-19-so-why-is-he-still-playing-dumb-about-climate-change-/?s=n1?source=newsletter&utm_content=a05&utm_source=ml_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=6641A943D7AF4DBF58F985736331C513&utm_campaign=ihha_89663, https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-screeched-in-mckenna-commits-a-classic-political-gaffe, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain