Dear Editor,
Re: Carbon Taxes
We already pay a huge carbon tax! Most of us just aren’t aware of it. In Alberta in 2013, the health costs of burning coal (4000 asthmatic episodes, 700 emergency visits for respiratory & cardiovascular illnesses, and 80 hospital admissions linked to burning coal) was $300 Million. That was just Alberta! $3.3 Billion is paid each year in the form of fossil fuel subsidies. Forest fires have been occurring earlier and are more extensive than ever before – that’s the result of burning carbon and trapping more energy from the sun to cause droughts. What was the cost of the Fort McMurray fire? Or of tornadoes? Or of floods? Who do you think pays for all of these things in the end? It’s not your rich uncle!
If we are going to have a liveable world for our children, and maybe even for us, we need to be weaned off of fossil fuels. Tax what you don’t want and encourage what you do. Citizen’s Climate Lobby has been urging our MPs and MPPs to bring in Carbon Fee and Dividend which functions as follows:
A fee is placed on fossil fuels near the source.
The fee increases steadily each year so that clean energy is cheaper than fossil fuels within a decade. It will also increase costs to consumers, thus encouraging them to drive less, buy more fuel efficient vehicles, insulate their homes, etc.
All the money collected from the carbon fee is returned to Canadians on an equitable basis in the form of a dividend, and/or lowered income tax. Poor and middle class households would receive more than they would pay for the increased cost of energy, as would be socially just.
Canadian imports and exports would be protected by a border tax adjustment.
It is time for us to pay the true cost of using fossil fuels, and quit paying subsidies to oil and gas companies. Most economists agree that Carbon Fee and Dividend is the most transparent, and cost effective way to wean us off fossil fuels and move to a fossil free economy.
Gord Cumming,
Georgetown, ON
Gord Cumming