BC Liberals, environmental groups full of hot air on carbon tax that rips off British Columbians

Bill Tieleman’s 24 Hours Column
Tuesday May 6, 2008

Tax just hot air

By BILL TIELEMAN

The worst of all would be a tax that did little or nothing to reduce carbon emissions, but imposed a disproportionate tax burden on low-income people.

- Professor Marjorie Griffin Cohen

Forget the hype - B.C.'s new carbon tax will do nothing to reduce greenhouse gases while punishing lower- income earners to give huge tax breaks to big business.

Forget the environmental groups - who are so desperate to curry favour with the B.C. Liberals that they are acting more like government spin doctors than critical, independent information sources.

Forget the commentators praising B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell for his "vision" - without doing their homework or disclosing their conflicts.

Just look at the results elsewhere, analyze B.C.'s tax, and make up your own mind.

Start with Norway, which has had the highest gas tax in the world since 1991.

A Statistics Norway study shows that: "Despite politically ambitious carbon taxes, this policy measure has had only a modest influence on greenhouse gas emissions."

Modest indeed - it accounted for only two per cent of CO2 emission reductions.

Now consider that Norway's gasoline tax was $51 per ton of CO2 in 1999, while B.C.'s tax starts at $10 per ton, or 2.4 cents per litre, and rises by 2012 to $30 per ton or 7.2 cents per litre.

With a carbon tax almost half that of Norway's, can anyone expect a dramatic reduction in emissions? B.C. sure doesn't - it actually projects increased demand for gas despite the tax.

As my fellow CKNW commentator Norman Spector says: "The government's own figures show that this is not going to do a warm bucket of spit for climate change."

Next, look at the B.C. Liberals' bogus claim that the gas tax is "revenue neutral." Half of the $1.8 billion in new gas tax money raised over three years goes to business tax cuts - most to big corporations and banks.

Then consider who is hurt most by this regressive consumption tax - lower income earners, especially those with no options to reduce use of gas, heating fuels and other carbon-taxed products.

As Simon Fraser University's Cohen points out: "Those least able to afford a tax increase will be disproportionately affected."

Amazingly, 16 environmental groups, including the David Suzuki Foundation, Sierra Club and Wilderness Committee, travelled to Victoria to support an ineffective carbon tax from a government that has obliterated environmental protection.

And Globe and Mail columnist Jeffrey Simpson lauded Campbell's policies as "the most progressive in North America" while attacking the B.C. New Democrats, but without disclosing he co-authored a book on climate change with Campbell's special adviser on the topic, Mark Jaccard.

That book's title, Hot Air, pretty much sums up the B.C. Liberals' expensive and unfair carbon tax.