MP disregards ‘mountain of evidence’ about carbon tax
By Letter to the Editor on January 4, 2019.
Re: “Motz says investment climate hurt because of carbon tax,” Dec. 21 Despite recent statements from Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner MP Glen Motz there is good reason to believe a carbon tax can have positive effects. Mr. Motz questions whether carbon taxes reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Figures from a variety of countries suggest that they do. Sweden, for example, reported a drop of about nine per cent in greenhouse gas emissions attributable to 15 years of carbon taxation. Denmark reported a 15-per-cent drop in per-capita emissions over the same period, for the same reason. If that’s not proof of effectiveness, it is at least impressive support. Mr. Motz contends that it is naive to follow the evidence and say that carbon taxation can reduce emissions. Naive or not, I am in good company. Prominent leaders in business, politics, and economics are in favour of carbon taxation. Preston Manning, Jean Charest, Paul Martin, Jim Dinning are among those who endorse it. The 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for work showing that carbon taxation is the most efficient economic lever for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. There is a mountain of evidence supporting the effectiveness of carbon taxation. See, for example, reports from Canada’s EcoFiscal Commission, The World Bank Group, and The World Economic Forum, as well as the Wikipedia article on carbon tax. Does Mr. Motz have relevant contrary information? Why does he disregard the evidence and reject the conclusions of qualified persons? Why does he persist in proclaiming that a carbon tax won’t work in Canada? Policy debate is healthy, but only if grounded in facts. I expect my member of parliament to provide more than dutiful repetition of unsupported political talking points. David Gue Medicine Hat 13-12
To add to what you are saying. Brian Jean and Jason Kenney tried to convince those of us in Edmonton that this was a made in Canada Tax created by Justin Trudeau and Rachel Notley to steal the people’s money, and of course some of our fellow seniors were dumb enough to believe it.
Retired oilmen have pointed out to me to remember when Peter Lougheed was urging the Klein and Stelmach governments to slow down the growth of the oil sands and get control of the pollution the oil industry agreed that something needed to be done about the pollution so they announced that they were going to join the Kyoto Accord , and Klein and Harper began hurling their sarcastic comments at them and threatened to cut off some of their perks. Dr. David Swann stood with the oilmen stating that he was concerned by what the pollution was doing to people’s health. It’s no secret that Alberta has the highest percentage per capita, in North America, of children with asthma and the second highest number of people with MS and it’s blamed on our air pollution. I’m one of asthma suffers. Klein had Dr. Swann fired and when the public outcry was such he was forced to apologize and offer him his job back. He refused and eventually became leader of the Liberal Party. Then the celebrities began coming to Alberta to hurl their sarcastic comments at the oilmen and our government didn’t care . Now when they finally have the two governments on their side and are willing to do something about it with a Carbon Tax they have all these Reformers convincing our ignorant fellow seniors that it’s going to financial destroy them, and the fools believe them, totally ignorant of what Jason Kenney has in store for them. The Carbon Tax won’t seem so bad when they are being forced to pay for his American Style health care system, that he’s promising. My concern is that if Trudeau and Notley are defeated by these fools in the next election a lot of Alberta seniors won’t be able to afford to live here, we are told that more and more seniors are using the food banks already.