Did any of you have the unfortunate luck to hear Terry Lake, our Minister of Environment, this morning on the news with CHNL? He was on the news defending the Carbon Tax and the Pacific Carbon Trust --- incredible.
He blasted John Cummins and the BC Conservative Party for saying this regrettable and regressive tax grab should be eliminated, and will be under a BC Conservative government. We are the only political jurisdiction in North America with a tax like this. Has Terry, my own MLA Kevin Krueger, or Christy Clark and the rest of caucus ever stopped to wonder why no one else has a tax like this?
Our government has each of us paying a carbon tax to offset our use of carbon based fuels. When we drive our cars it costs us more --- when we heat our homes it costs us more --- when we buy our groceries it costs us more.
Everything we buy, and do, costs us more!
Maybe I could live with that … BUT this ridiculous tax, that does nothing to actually reduce the carbon footprint, does not end there.
Hospital and Care Facilities for our seniors pay this tax as well. That’s right … instead of providing better medical services, the Interior Health Authority, and other health authorities around the province, pay a carbon tax.
Perhaps our Minister of Environment Terry Lake would rather they turn off the heat at Royal Inland Hospital to reduce their carbon foot print – or maybe the lights – perhaps both.
And what about our children that attend school? How does the carbon tax benefit them? It does not; not one little bit. Again given the fact this is a modern society that requires carbon based fuels, for our everyday needs, the school system is required to pay this same carbon tax.
From the school taxes each of us pays for the education of our children, a portion goes back to government – in the form of a Carbon Tax.
Instead of supplies for the classroom … instead of more teachers … instead of more library books … and instead of keeping school open in rural communities, they pay a carbon tax with money badly needed in the education system.
SHAME on you Terry Lake for suggesting this is a good thing!
SHAME on you Terry Lake for saying how proud and happy children are that they pay this carbon tax to protect the environment (YES he said that in the interview).
SHAME on you Terry Lake for continuing to toe the party line saying the carbon tax is good for BC. It is NOT --- and you know it!
If you and your Liberal friends really want to protect the environment then upgrade the heating systems in government facilities to be more efficient … upgrade lighting systems to be more efficient … and upgrade windows to be more efficient.
That is where government resources should be going --- NOT to a carbon tax where the bureaucracy eats it up, and the Pacific Carbon Trust passes it on to large corporations like Encana Natural Gas.
In Kamloops, I’m Alan Forseth, and these are the thoughts of at least one conservative!
3 comments:
Here's a follow-up to my story from earlier today. I had a blog post (http://kamloopsthompsonbcconservatives.blogspot.com/2011/01/cause-im-taxman-yeah-im-taxman.html) on January 13th which included the following:
Then there’s the Carbon Tax – that’s the one brought about (so we’re told) to help us to be more environmentally responsible by reducing our use of fossils fuels. Last summer the carbon tax rate on a litre of gasoline increased to nearly 4 ½ cents, and by next summer it will be sitting at 7 cents a litre. By the way, are you being more “environmentally responsible” in your home? Natural gas and other fuels like propane, kerosene and home heating oil are also subject to the carbon tax.
School districts already facing tough choices on what programs to cut – teachers to let go – and schools to close – are subject to the Carbon Tax as well. As I understand it, that amounts to something like one hundred and twenty thousand "environmentally responsible" dollars ($120,000) a year being removed from funding school basics in the Kamloops Thompson district alone.
In fact schools, health care organizations and other government organizations pay the carbon tax twice. Once on any fuel they use and again to satisfy the Liberals' foolish pledge to make all government services 'carbon neutral'. This is where the schools etc. have to purchase carbon offsets (similar to medieval indulgences) to pay for their sin in using fossil fuels. The Pacific Carbon Trust simply purchases these offsets from someone who claims to have reduced their carbon usage (Encana being an example). This is similar to Europe's Cap-and-trade scheme which has proven expensive, ineffective and frequently scammed by con-artists. This is not to suggest Encana is cheating - far from it - but they are using this system to pad their bottom line.
It's difficult to conceive of a more foolish policy except for the likelihood that the NDP would do the same or worse.
Peter Neville
None of this addresses the dishonest underlying premise that was used to market the tax. The "science" is nonsense, the frauds are exposed and the case is closed.
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