Call the carbon tax what it really is
Re Can Canada fight climate change without a carbon tax?, Oct. 18 The article by Alex Ballingall on the federal carbon pricing plan, along with the accompanying rebate program, was very informative.
However, I found that the most important and interesting sentence requires more information. “It also (the carbon pricing plan) features a second component called an output-based pricing system, which allows large industrial emitters to avoid paying the tax on a certain portion of their pollution.” According to a recent study, just 100 companies are responsible for 71 per cent of emissions. So the questions are, what are the large industries and how big is the portion that is exempt? I would hate to think that it is the little guy, you and me, that gets the bill while the real polluters receive an indulgence. Kurt Crist, Consecon, Ont. The Ford Conservatives cancelled Ontario’s carbon trading program. Yet, gasoline prices have not come down.
Come 2019 when federal carbon tax kicks in, Ontarians will see gasoline prices go up again because we are no longer exempt, thanks to Ford’s cancellation of carbon trading.
Ford will then blame the federal government for the gas pump increase. And also happily pocket the gas pump tax from the defunct carbon trading plan. Salmon Lee, Mississauga Now will you stop calling it a tax. Nowhere in all the government online literature is it ever referred to as a tax, nor in the legislation itself. If the money goes from polluters to people, it is a price on pollution, not a tax.
This is not semantics. Even George Schultz said “it’s not a tax if the government doesn’t keep the money.” Don’t stoop to the level of morally and intellectually bankrupt politicians seeking to distract voters from their moral and intellectual bankruptcy by constantly yapping about a straw-man “job killing carbon tax” — numerous studies have shown the actual impact on the economy is very low, even positive in some cases as the money going to low income people increases their spending. It’s very simple to come out ahead on this deal — pollute less than average John Stephenson, Etobicoke