TOPIC-ONTARIO-ELECTION
Taxing the Good the Bad and the Ugly
"Something is drastically wrong with the Green Party. They couldn’t possibly do what they’re proposing. It’s not realistic." That was what Don Cousens told The Liberal after the Sept 25 Richmond Hill All Candidates meeting. But now, having spent quite a few hours walking the streets of Richmond Hill over the past few weeks, I wonder how realistic — how sustainable — our town is these days? We now know that climate change is a fact. Yet, we continue to pave over our region at an alarming rate. Despite rising transportation costs, we import close to 80% of our food instead of adopting policies that would make local farming both possible and profitable. We have designed our town so pedestrians have to compete with 6 and 8-lane roads while many of us fill our SUVs with cheap food, cheap goods and cheap gas (by world standards). How "realistic" is this? How sustainable?
Writing in the Oct 2 Globe and Mail, Gary Mason captures the problem quite succinctly: "To my mind, this is the only issue in the next federal election: which party has a plan to actually do something about climate change? Which party has the courage to introduce measures that are likely going to hurt a bit, economically and otherwise. There is no way around some pain. But it will hurt a heck of a lot less if we do something now as opposed to waiting another 10 or 15 years when the problem is even worse."
In fact, the Green platform is essentially the plan that Gary Mason seems to be calling for, although the Green vision will ensure the "pain" of change is borne fairly. Green Party leader, Frank de Jong’s plan to tax "bads" not "goods" is a system of tax shifts that will encourage conservation, innovation and a host of alternative energy supplies. Between opportunities for co-generation (where "waste" heat is used to heat buildings), new wind and solar installations, and programs to upgrade our homes and workplaces to make them more efficient, the Green plan will result in new jobs, new green economies and more livable cities. And it is affordable because we will no longer be feeding the great Ontario nuclear vacuum that has been Hoovering up tens of billions of dollars for the past 50 years.
The Green approach is realistic, Mr Cousens, and it is precisely the kind of action the CD Howe Institute demands in their Sept 2007 "Call for Comprehensive Tax Reform". That report calls for a shift away from traditional income and investment taxes to "a low-rate, broad-based, consumption-based environmental tax to price the cost of environmental damage that affects Canadian lives".
The alternative is to continue to elect traditional Liberal and Conservative governments that are often beholden to business and special interest groups and incapable of initiating the kind of real change that our day demands. These governments will continue to support an "ugly" tax system that encourages rapid growth and easy profit while ignoring critical environmental problems.
Rod Potter . . . . . .. . .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .ALL I CAN SAY ABOUT THIS ARTICLE . . . . . IS . . . .AMEN.
"Something is drastically wrong with the Green Party. They couldn’t possibly do what they’re proposing. It’s not realistic." That was what Don Cousens told The Liberal after the Sept 25 Richmond Hill All Candidates meeting. But now, having spent quite a few hours walking the streets of Richmond Hill over the past few weeks, I wonder how realistic — how sustainable — our town is these days? We now know that climate change is a fact. Yet, we continue to pave over our region at an alarming rate. Despite rising transportation costs, we import close to 80% of our food instead of adopting policies that would make local farming both possible and profitable. We have designed our town so pedestrians have to compete with 6 and 8-lane roads while many of us fill our SUVs with cheap food, cheap goods and cheap gas (by world standards). How "realistic" is this? How sustainable?
Writing in the Oct 2 Globe and Mail, Gary Mason captures the problem quite succinctly: "To my mind, this is the only issue in the next federal election: which party has a plan to actually do something about climate change? Which party has the courage to introduce measures that are likely going to hurt a bit, economically and otherwise. There is no way around some pain. But it will hurt a heck of a lot less if we do something now as opposed to waiting another 10 or 15 years when the problem is even worse."
In fact, the Green platform is essentially the plan that Gary Mason seems to be calling for, although the Green vision will ensure the "pain" of change is borne fairly. Green Party leader, Frank de Jong’s plan to tax "bads" not "goods" is a system of tax shifts that will encourage conservation, innovation and a host of alternative energy supplies. Between opportunities for co-generation (where "waste" heat is used to heat buildings), new wind and solar installations, and programs to upgrade our homes and workplaces to make them more efficient, the Green plan will result in new jobs, new green economies and more livable cities. And it is affordable because we will no longer be feeding the great Ontario nuclear vacuum that has been Hoovering up tens of billions of dollars for the past 50 years.
The Green approach is realistic, Mr Cousens, and it is precisely the kind of action the CD Howe Institute demands in their Sept 2007 "Call for Comprehensive Tax Reform". That report calls for a shift away from traditional income and investment taxes to "a low-rate, broad-based, consumption-based environmental tax to price the cost of environmental damage that affects Canadian lives".
The alternative is to continue to elect traditional Liberal and Conservative governments that are often beholden to business and special interest groups and incapable of initiating the kind of real change that our day demands. These governments will continue to support an "ugly" tax system that encourages rapid growth and easy profit while ignoring critical environmental problems.
Rod Potter . . . . . .. . .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .ALL I CAN SAY ABOUT THIS ARTICLE . . . . . IS . . . .AMEN.
Comments