Under Kyoto, third world and developing nation GHG emissions didn’t matter but if one of their citizens move to a developed country, their GHG emissions suddenly do matter.

Very simply, if growth in Canada’s GHG emissions (CO2 plus others) is a real problem, requiring real and concrete solutions, then stop making the problem worse by bringing more people into this cold, large, country where by definition new-comers must consume more energy than in most of their home countries.

A clampdown on immigration would naturally offend a key Liberal Party voting block and so will appear in Mr. Dion’s policy book anytime soon. Still, the silence of pretty well all the political parties, climate activists, media types, etc. on this aspect of carbon use is puzzling.

That sounds like a Dalton McGuinty election promise.! Have you ever known a Politician that ever told the truth, let alone a Liberal?

If this guy really cared about giving a tax break, he would simply put this idea into play, forget all the tax breaks that we would be alleged to get, just charge the carbon tax and get rid of the GST. That way everybody would get a tax break, instead of trying figure out who will get what.

But this of course is too simple and would actually benefit your wallets.

But I of course have beaten the system. I have moved out of Canada to a place, believe it or not where I can actually live on my pension. I won’t have to get a job as a school guard or a greeter at Wal-Mart just to make ends meet.

I of course don’t vote and even if I was still there, I wouldn’t, because there is no one to vote for. They are all the same. Lies, lies and more lies. The only thing you can actually count on is more taxes.

1. That human derived CO2 causes so called global warming is still (fact) an unproven theory that is increasingly looking scientifically unsound (eg compared to solar drivers). None of the GCM models use CO2 in them (look it up). Correlation is not neccesarily cause, sometimes in science there are coincidal covariates. Look at all the medical papers that correlate some health issue with some variable in isolation.

2. Canada “doing something about it” will have no effect at all, regardless of whether China plays ball or not. I’m all for conservation, but lets not get stupid like this. Dinging Canadians big $$ for something that might not exist, and that almost certainly will not help, is crazy.

3. Its really NEP v.2.0 – western provinces get nailed for all the C tonnes (eg cold, oil producing, large distances, etc) – the tax transfers go largely to Ontario and Quebec, which is really what this is all about – getting votes in Ont and Que.

Funny, last time I checked (when I filed my taxes), my personal income tax actually went up a bit on the same amount of income. Sure, they cut the GST, but there has not been any substantial cut to personal income taxes — quite the opposite would be true, in fact.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want Dion as PM either. I think he would be the worst ever for this country. But I had also had high hopes for Harper, almost all of which he managed to dash somehow.

The cuts to income tax may look promising at first, but at closer inspection, it is plain to see that there is not enough of a safety margin built into Dion’s plan that would protect taxpayers and consumers from unexpected consequences – which always occur, as surely as the sun rises in the east. Under his tax plan, the bottom income-tax bracket would be cut from 15% to 13.5%, with the remaining brackets being reduced by 1% each, which is not a lot. Meanwhile, the Green Party has come up with a more reasonable plan, which would apply a rate of 15% to all incomes under $37,000, thus giving hardworking Canadians more of a tax break than they would see under Dion’s program.

The Green Party is proposing a Green Tax Shift that comes much closer to the ideal solution, which Dion has ignored completely: It is probably safe to price carbon at $40 a tonne right from the start, instead of waiting for four years. But in return, the income-tax system should be switched to a flat tax, as the one envisaged by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Such a flat tax would come with a 15% rate for all incomes below $80,000 and 25% for anything above that amount – the threshold of $80,000 alone demonstrates that the authors of that plan have a more accurate reading of the current circumstances taxpayers find themselves in in Canada than all the politicians combined.

A carbon tax of $40 per tonne of emission coupled with a 15%-25% flat tax built around a threshold of $80,000 would work best – for the economy and the environment. This way, taxpayers would have a sufficient safety net in case the carbon tax produces unforeseen side effects in the economy (such as exorbitant inflation, reduced competitiveness of Canadian companies, etc.).

As of now, the Green Party seems to be the only party that “gets it”. The Liberals are trying to move in the right direction, but as usual, have botched it before they have even started. The Conservatives call it a crazy plan, but have failed to table anything useful themselves – and they ignore the fact that many prominent conservatives, like David Frum, are in full support of a carbon tax. And the NDP is also railing against the carbon tax plan.

On the sidelines of the general debate, there have been critical voices out of Alberta, such as Alberta’s finance minister Iris Evans, saying that a carbon tax would be detrimental to Alberta and that it would unfairly discriminate against the province. This is not quite accurate, because the purpose of a carbon tax is to reduce the use and production of carbon, and while, say, Québec would not see a carbon tax on its environmentally-friendly hydropower, there is no discrimination as such. A carbon tax will go wherever there are carbon emissions, and if Alberta happens to be such a place, then naturally the tax will apply there more so than in other jurisdictions with less carbon output.

However, since Albertans would be hardest hit by a carbon tax, not only at the level of individual consumers and taxpayers but also across its entire economy, they should be eligible for much more substantial tax cuts and breaks than the rest of the country – if Dion’s plan came to fruition, that is. No such “special treatment” would be necessary if the carbon tax were introduced in connection with the flat tax of 15% and 25% as described above.

Canadians will have to do a lot of reading in order to form an educated opinion about the carbon tax plan. But as things stand right now, and if Canadians actually do their “homework”, instead of merely listening to their politicians (always the wrong thing to do), they will conclude that if a carbon tax had to be swallowed somehow, of all the plans currently out there in circulation the plan of the Green Party would make a lot more sense than what Dion has tossed to the masses in the hopes of putting the Liberals back in power.

It’s true. However, the point of the carbon tax is to make energy sources which do not generate CO2, more competitive – without direct subsidies.

Andrew doesn’t need my help defending himself, but…he’s not exactly wrong about the productivity thing. Unfortunately that’s because the only generally agreed upon measures of productivity are based on income or GDP output per hours worked, which is frankly not a very useful concept. By this definition the average NHL hockey player is 5 times as productive as a Supreme Court Justice, and – well, I don’t know how much Andrew makes or works.

This is another post for another day. More to the point for today, I don’t think these criticisms (revenue non-neutrality, wrong focus from a productivity standpoint) will reasonate with Canadians who aren’t obsessed with precise interpretations of the minutiae of tax policy and macroeconomic.

Also known as the UK’s “Fuel Price Escalator”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_Price_Escalator

“The end to the escalator was announced on November 9, 2000, following the UK fuel protests, of which it was a contributory factor. When the escalator ended, fuel in the UK was the most expensive in Europe, with fuel tax representing over 75% of the retail price of fuel. In 1993 UK fuel had been amongst the cheapest in Europe.”

Do you have a better idea?

You can’t have it both ways. You cannot say “there are no targets” and when this is shown to be wrong change your line to “ahh, well how did that work last time?”

If you want to spout Conservative talking points then that is fair enough. If you want to have a substantive exchange about today and how we can move forward, well then welcome aboard.

Where are the year over year targets? Are you serious? The Government’s widely ridiculed plan does not provide these. Major environmental groups do not call for annual numbers. Nobody who looks at this topic does that.

The general scientific consensus is 1) 20% or more by 2002 and 2) reductions below 1990.

Having essentially staked his entire political future on being the leader to bring Canada into a sustainably environmental era, it would be complete political suicide for him to not follow through on this plan once in office.

Dion, in effect, turned himself into a One Issue candidate yesterday. Even if one is given to give politicians the benefit of the doubt, logic alone tells you that Dion would want to follow through on this plan.

“We believe…this should…if other countries…”

Where do they spell out the number of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions reductions, by year.

Why does it have to be one or the other?

That is the problem with carbon taxes. It cannot, with any certainty, predict or meet emissions target. All it does is tax pollution, not place any limits on pollutions. A cap and trade does both.

Btw, Norway has other parallels to Canada. It’s s considered the third largest oil producer in the world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Norway).

Those who suggest there are no targets in the Liberal proposal should look at p.16:

“We believe that our target should be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020. This should be increased to at least 25 per cent if other countries take on comparable efforts. This is in line with what the science tells us we need to do. We must achieve absolute greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and we must begin today.”

Since Canada is a much larger GHG emitter than Norway, is that a fair comparison?

Happy to help:

http://ideas.repec.org/p/ssb/dispap/337.html

Please share.

Thanks for the reply, but the issue stands: where are the emission targets (which you praised last night)?

Norway’s carbon tax experience resulted in a 2% emission cut….in a country that is light years ahead of us in green solutions.

This is what makes Dion’s plan so disingenuous. If he is announcing a tax policy, fine. But if this is meant to be his grand plan for the environment, give me a break.

This is not going to make an iota of difference in our overall environmental footprint.

That makes more sense.

They haven’t exempted gasoline: it’s already taxed.

The argument the Liberals make is that the current 10 cent excise tax on gasoline is equivalent to a $42 per tonne carbon tax. Hence, they say, there is no need to adjust the tax in the first four years, ie while they are ramping up the carbon tax from $10 to $40. In other words, in the startup phase they’re just bringing other forms of fossil fuel up to par with the existing tax on gasoline.
They don’t say this, but it’s pretty clear what comes next: the carbon tax continues to increase beyond $40, and the gasoline tax gets folded into it. Meaning the tax on gas will increase, starting in year five.

Reducing combustion emissions through combustion efficiency improvements driven by high prices means reductions NOx, SOx and particulates – smog and asthma causing agents.

I’m aware of Layton’s plan. I just don’t think it’s credible. What I said last night was that this was the first credible plan that any of the major parties had brought forward.
They’ve all talked about cap and trade, which is fine as far as it goes, but no plan that only covers the large final emitters — ie about half of emissions — is going to get us anywhere near our targets.

The other thing about business profits is that they can be offset or offshored (sort of how the richest among us pay relatively low taxes because their excellent accountants shelter their income). A carbon tax should be on a strict consumption basis. “Exempting” gasoline is stupid – just rebrand existing Federal Fuel Tax as carbon tax.

Aviation fuel is trickier – given that it has, historically, been cheaper to fill an aircraft’s tanks beyond the necessary load when departing a low-tax area than pay excessive duties on a normal fill on arrival at a high-tax destination, it might require the duty to either be kept low or for the US to impose a simultaneous tax.

Good point, Brian. And on that front, this is where I think that the LPC tried to fend off what was sure to be a crucifixion had they touched gasoline.

That being said, if the intent is to ensure that consumers use less gasoline, the current high prices (which haven’t reached a ceiling yet and are not likely to go back down) is already doing that.

One could adopt a purist position and say that all carbon should be taxed. Or one could recognize that this policy is enough of a risk for the LPC w/o having to ensure political suicide at the polls in the next election.

Besides, I personally am enjoying watching the CPC having to squirm and explain the lies they told on that point by responding that Dion must surely be lying about that one.

A friend of mine worked at a gas station one summer. Should his income taxes be retroactively tagged as carbon taxes and be exempted?

Come on. The gas tax is a tax on gas. The corporate tax is a tax on business profits.

The current excise tax on gasoline is not a carbon tax and it is disingenuous to pretend that it is. If the excise tax can be called a carbon tax then why not call business taxes on refineries a carbon tax and exempt them too?

If a government wishes to introduce a carbon tax in order to modify consumption of carbon, I fail to understand why it does not apply across the board without exception. Otherwise, why not just bring back the GST to pay for the new spending programs?

Two words. Meh. Tro.

Speaking of which, any Montrealers out there who remember the joke about why the Metro is blue?

You have convincingly busted the Liberals on their claims of revenue neutrality.

A couple points you missed:

Nowhere in Dion’s plan is there any mention of how much emissions will be cut. Which, if I’m not mistaken, was the whole point of the exercise. Layton’s plan (which you appeared unaware of last night on CBC) was unveiled two weeks ago and sets caps and a timeline.

Secondly, this plan does tax the “things we want more of”, like public transit. Doubling diesel taxes will make transit more expensive and less enticing to people.

This tax is not revenue neutral since the top rate doesn’t change, so once again we get “tax breaks” for everyone except those who actually pay taxes.

But this is Canada and there is no problem too large that it can’t be solved by more government and more taxes.

With respect, Ontario is “blessed” as much with nuclear plants and coal plants that should be closed by now as it is with Hydro. Manitoba, BC and Newfoundland are also quite blessed with hydro.

Quebec is also blessed with a massive aluminum smelting industry. Ontario, you may have heard, makes cars (sometimes), and steel, and nickel. None of these industries are what you would call perfectly carbon-free. Nova Scotia has coal. Newfoundland has oil.

It’s not always “the West” versus everybody else. There’s more going on.

“Revenue neutral” means you put every penny back into Canadians’ hands. This is what the Shift says it will do.

You have a valid point that it is difficult to quantify with precision the value of a credit (as is the case with other fiscal expenditures.) But Department of Finance estimates this regularly. Every Budget that has included a new exemption has estimates of the cost.

Bottom line though for most Canadians is this question: will this shift take less out of my pay cheque and/or deliver to me and my family a bigger refund?

That is the test.

The “very budget documents that describe credits” refer to forgeone revenues in the form of tax concessions and/or expenditures. These documents do in fact distinguish between direct program spending and tax concessions/expenditures.

Further, being old isn’t a “behavior” the government, or Dion, wants to encourage or discourage. Nor is simply living North of 60. We can have a debate about whether tax credits for kids and for having a job (earned income credit) are tax expenditures in the same vein as deductions for charitable/political donations; I would argue that “behaviors” as fundamental as having a job and having kids are so fundamentally basic that their treatment in the tax code shouldn’t be equated with treatment of donations to political parties.

I (now) appreciate this is not simply about semantics. This is about defining the rules of the debate. Dion says his plan is revenue-neutral becasue projected additional revenue and projected foregone revenue (tax cuts plus tax concessions/expenditures) cancel each other out. I fail to see what is inaccurate (or, as some appear to be claiming, misleading or dishonest) about that particular claim.

If I have 3 apples and I eat one, I have 2 apples left. If I have 3 apples and I slice it and then eat it, I don’t have 2 uneaten & unsliced apples and one sliced & eaten apple. I still have 2 apples.