How helpful is the carbon tax?
By Letter to the Editor on January 23, 2018.
Once again carbon taxation is in the news, this time from a federal perspective. But what about our provincial carbon tax? I feel that at the very least we as taxpayers are owed a report card on the effects of our carbon tax especially on its one year anniversary. How much money did it bring in? What was its contributing factor to inflation? We saw higher production costs and transportation costs in getting raw goods to processors and processed goods back to consumers so there had to be some contribution to inflation. Since this tax is all about the environment, how much cleaner is our air? How many tonnes of carbon were sequestered or otherwise kept from being released into the air? How many of our waterways were cleaned up even a little bit? In other words, how much less is our carbon footprint this year in comparison to previous years? Perhaps our local MLA, Mr. Wanner, could push his government to sanction such a report to taxpayers. Perhaps this report should be done under the supervision of the provincial auditor so it remains non-political. As for Mr. Kenney and his band of merry men abolishing this tax if they come to power, well, with nothing else in the barn it’s going to be hard to put this cash cow out to pasture. How about it folks, wouldn’t you like to know how much better off we are with this tax? Dan Glydon Redcliff, Alta. 8-7
While we’re at it Dan why don’t we ask the Reform Party Boys to give us a report on how much cheaper our power bills were after they helped Ralph Klein deregulate our electricity, Klein promised they would be. Some of Lougheed’s former MLAs pointed out that it was the dirtiest trick Klein could have played on Albertans. It had a massive impact on our health care and education costs, why wouldn’t it?
Let’s also demand a report on how much better off are we are after Klein closed hospitals, 1,500 hospital beds and cut 5,000 nursing positions, driving out thousands of doctors and nurses, putting peoples lives at risk.They almost killed my father, the best supporter the conservatives ever had , and they did kill other people , with several lawsuits being launched against Klein. Yet Klein claimed he was making our health care system a lot better as he created long waiting lists in emergency wards and made it impossible for people to get the medical treatment they desperately needed. Some paid thousands of dollars to go elsewhere.
The fact is for years we heard our hero Peter Lougheed urge the Klein and Stelmach governments to slow down the growth of the oilsands and get control, of the pollution, and they wouldn’t listen.We watched while the world bad mouthed us and they still wouldn’t listen, wasting millions of dollars trying to pretend it wasn’t dirty oil , when it is. So the oil industry came up with the Carbon Tax, which many feel is the best way to go. Our so-called conservatives , with their Reform buddy Stephen Harper wouldn’t implement it , even when the oil industry wanted it done. The Liberals in B.C. were willing to give it a try and implemented it in 2008 and apparently it’s been working well there and it’s helping to silence our critics .
There are reports on the internet about it make certain you read the one by Dennis McConaghy. Retired senior executive of TransCanada Pipeline.
FuC, where is this documentation that the oil industry asked for a carbon tax? Can you ever let go of Klein? You bring him up in every comment. Perhaps you are actually infatuated with him?