ROTHENBURGER – Why I won’t be in any convoys protesting the carbon tax
(Image: Mel Rothenburger)
THE CARBON TAX hasn’t changed my life. I don’t drive less because of it.
Yet, I support this tax because I’m an environmentalist at heart and worry about climate change, and the experts say the carbon tax accomplishes what it’s designed to do, which is discourage people from burning so much fossil fuel.
I just don’t happen to be one of them. When I fill up at the pump — two days ago the beast sucked in $150 worth of regular — I don’t curse David Eby (or Justin Trudeau) for adding 14 cents a litre to my bill, and won’t think much about the extra three cents that will be added on top of that when the tax goes up on Easter Monday.
It’s just that I don’t think in terms of the breakdown of what it costs. As another litre pours into my gas tank I don’t calculate the amount of motor fuel tax vs. carbon tax and how much I’d be saving without them.
Now that I mention it, though, I reckon that as of the April 1 increase I’ll be paying almost $2.50 more on that big fill-up than I’m paying now. Still, what I think about is the total cost per litre.
When that goes up, I blame the refineries and Big Oil, not the government. I carefully watch the price signs at the gas stations as I drive by in my gas-guzzling pickup, and make note of today’s price for a litre of regular and a litre of diesel, since I have need of both.
When I filled the tank this week, it was up several cents to $1.73.9 a litre and that’s what I felt on the charge card.
Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
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It amazes me that people get so upset about a $.03 increase in the carbon tax but just shrug their shoulders when Big Oil raises gas prices before every long weekend.
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At 1.6% of global greenhouse gas emissions, Canadians through this ever-rising Carbon Tax, among a multitude of other tax increases, are being inordinately penalized by an ideologically-driven PM and Environment minister for an issue that is not of our making or doing, while the actual culprits laugh at us. This over-reaching government takes deeper and more frequent dives into the pockets of Canadians at every opportunity. It’s almost like it’s a full-time job figuring out more ways to generate even more tax revenue to feed a government appetite for money that will never be satisfied, and the Carbon Tax is just another weak excuse…..but I digress. Stop spending money already. Profligate overspending and artificial stimulation of an economy that didn’t need it since this government was elected in 2015, and long before Covid, is what has caused the affordability crisis. The civil service has grown by a ridiculous 31% under this out-of-control government. They don’t even know where the money is going. Some of its own employees were collecting CERB while collecting a stout government paycheck. The Auditor General has said the $68 million and counting wasted on ArriveCan can’t be tracked. Enough is enough. Canadian citizens have to live within their means, our government should have to as well.
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Suck it up. As our Mom use to tell us, two wrongs don’t make a right. All we can do is worry about is our piece of the world and do our best to protect it.
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Just 100 of all the hundreds of thousands of companies in the world have been responsible for 71% of the global GHG emissions that cause global warming. For example., the US military-industrial complex pollutes more than 171 countries. This is not how CO2 affects you or me Mel this is how this affects the 70% of others who live from paycheck to paycheck.
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Completely agree.
This is the way I run vehicles as well, ie; fill up and take responsibly for that.
I might take the slight extra step and suggest that those convoying and protesting carbon taxes and their increases … are just being hypocritical as they are also going to fill up the tank themselves, and be unlikely to change their lifestyle, but will invariably whine anyway … in other words not take the financial or environmental responsibility at all.
At the end of the day, people complain about today, and climb on the usual anti – pick your politician – bandwagon instead of accept the responsibility of what they actually do.
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Good Mel, good thinking and in full support.
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