As far as Western Canada is concerned, Stephan Dion has failed the Litmus test as only a true eastern liberal could: he's proposed a massive Carbon Tax grab that will screw Albertans, but only lightly touch his core voters in Ontario and Quebec. He says his tax will be 'revenue neutral.' Sound familiar? It sure does to some of the few Alberta Liberals (yes, there are some) I know. They're still defending Dion, but oh man, they're not happy about it.
Dion is in Edmonton shilling for his “Green Shift” carbon tax plan, and met yesterday with our Mayor before moving on to a love-in with the midstream media and party faithful. I'll admit, Mayor Stephen Mandel, about as tax-and-spend as any mayor we've had in the last 20 years, went up a few notches in my estimation when he commented to the media, “A tax is a tax is a tax.”
Today's Edmonton Sun described Dion's 'Green Shift' as a tax “ that would Punish Polluters and Reward green businesses and consumers. Don't we already have laws to punish polluters? If an evil company is polluting, they're supposed to be shut down or forced to mend their ways- not pay an extra tax and continue polluting. Surely that is not what Stephan Dion intends.
It appears instead, that Dion and his liberals mean to punish legitimate businesses that are operating in a lawful manner with a new tax that will only be passed on to their customers and their employees. Higher Corporate Taxes are ALWAYS passed on to the customer through higher prices, and as we learned during Pierre Trudeau's NEP-induced recession in Alberta, through shut downs and canceled projects that can only hurt the employees of our resource sector...
The liberals, with their lefty “tax-the-corporations” obsession seem eternally unable to understand that no legitimate business pays taxes. Hopefully you already know this. All corporations pass the cost of their taxes on in the price they charge their customers- ultimately you and me. As consumers we pay all the levied corporate taxes in Canada, and our personal income taxes, and sales taxes too.
For a moment I could not help but wonder if Dion is truly so simple-minded as to believe a new 15 BILLION dollar carbon tax can be revenue neutral. Remember, that estimate is by the same folks who initially told us their gun registry would only cost a few tens of millions of dollars. Surely Dion and his fellow elitists know this, I think they just don't give a shit about the actual impact on the people, and are more concerned about making it sound good in the best Ontario-soccer-mom-pleasing way possible: Punish the evil corporations that burn coal and oil and cause global warming.
That's right, boil away the fluff in his 'green shift' plan and you see he means the evil corporations that burn coal and oil and gas to provide Albertas with electricity and heat, and the base chemical feed stocks for our manufacturing sector.
How would that be revenue neutral?
He intends to provide for tax credits and deductions for companies and individuals who mend their ways and reduce their so-called carbon footprint.
Hmmm. That sounds fine for consumers in Ontario and Quebec, with their massive hydro-electric dams and nuclear power plants,b ut Alberta has only coal-fired electrical power plants. Coal-fired electrical power plants that are running at near full capacity. Obviously unlike the good voters in the East, the evil customers of the evil Albertan corporations won't benefit from Dion's tax credits.
What is the likelihood for hydro dams and nuclear power in Alberta, anyway? Not good. The soccer-moms and other cute-&-fuzzy-bunny types are currently doing their best to kill a planned nuclear power plant destined for the sparsely populated Peace country. Also, back in the late 1980s when future premier Ralph Klein mused about a possible hydro dam for the foothills west of Edmonton, the fuzzy-bunny-lefties shit themselves sideways in their rush to denounce the negative environmental impact a hydro damn would have on the bugs and ferns and stuff upstream of the dam.
Regardless, Edmonton mayor Mandel said it nicely. A tax is a attacks is a tax. Dion's green shaft is, as we feared years ago, a way to use the manufactured specter of GLOBAL WARMING as an excuse for N.E.P. 2.
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