{"id":151308,"date":"2024-03-12T09:32:29","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T13:32:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/rwddev\/?p=151308"},"modified":"2024-03-12T09:32:53","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T13:32:53","slug":"dont-axe-the-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doppleronline.ca\/huntsville\/dont-axe-the-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t axe the tax | Letters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Eighty per cent of us receive more money in quarterly carbon rebates than we pay in carbon taxes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as carbon taxes rise each year most of us will be even better off in future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If Conservatives axe the tax, it\u2019s mostly the rich, those who pollute more, and pay the most taxes, who will be better off. Richer people often heat more than one large home with gas, fly a lot and pay more carbon taxes than the rest of us. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a family of four in 2024\/5 including the 20% rural top up, the current quarterly carbon repayment in Muskoka is $336, or $1,344 a year. Look out for these rebates in April, July, October and January, either as deposits in your bank accounts, or cheques in the mail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Farmers are exempt from paying pollution charges on all their gasoline or diesel fuels, so that 97% of on-farm emissions are exempt from pollution charges and farmers will receive more tax credits as time goes by to help them transition to lower carbon farming methods).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you may ask what is the point of carbon taxes other than to redistribute income from the rich to the less rich? The answer is a well established principle in economics\u2026 the Polluter Pay Principle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Imagine somebody who is discharging chemicals into a river and contaminating the water. In the process they kill the fish and incomes of fishermen downstream. It would be only fair to make those polluters pay compensation to the fishermen. And if the fine for polluting were to rise over time the polluters would have an incentive to find a cleaner way to operate. It is the job of governments to make that happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so it is with carbon taxes. Over 72 countries use carbon taxes to reduce carbon pollution, and they do so because it works. It is estimated that carbon pollution pricing will reduce Canada\u2019s emissions by 33% by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Governments know that changing prices changes behaviour.  Decades of experience show that people try to switch to cheaper purchases as the price of one thing rises by comparison with another. So, as carbon taxes rise on fossil fuels (which are the main cause of climate breakdown), people will try to find ways to spend less on fossil  fuels (coal, oil, gas, diesel, propane, methane). By buying fewer fossil fuels they will save money and also emit less carbon pollution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They (we) might do so by:<\/p>\n\n\n\n