For the sake of Canada and the world, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must stand firm on the carbon tax. The burning of fossil fuels is driving changes in climate and weather that underlie recent devastating and deadly floods, fires, drought, and heat waves in Canada and elsewhere.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that fossil fuel use must be eliminated quickly if the world is to avoid the most damaging economic, environmental, and health effects of climate change. Economic analysis shows that a carbon tax is the most efficient and least economically disruptive way to get carbon emissions down. Claims that a carbon tax will cripple the economy are simply fear mongering.
B.C. has for years had a carbon tax significantly larger than that which the federal government plans to impose and it has not harmed the provincial economy. A number of European countries, Costa Rica, and several U.S. states also have various forms of carbon tax. None is suffering economically as a result.
Set initially at $10/ton of CO2, Canada’s tax will not have an immediate effect on carbon emissions. But, slated to increase by $10/year, the tax will soon affect fossil fuel use. Revenue from the tax is to be rebated to taxpayers. It would be better spent supporting the development of alternative energy sources (solar, wind, geothermal) to backstop workers displaced from the oil industry and to provide the energy needed to replace fossil fuels.
Michael Healey
vice chair, First Things First Okanagan