As British Columbians jump into their cars to go to Canada Day celebrations or take their families to the beach, they will be feeling the pinch at the pumps. On July 1st, the carbon tax goes up again, as the government continues with its plan to force people out of their cars, sit around in the dark, and wear sweaters in their homes to stop what some people believe is a looming global warming Armageddon.

But as political parties have discovered to their dismay, voters are not willing to sacrifice their wellbeing today to prevent something that may or may not happen 100 years from now. It's time to get rid of the carbon tax and use the tax system for what it was intended -- financing essential government services -- not as a tool to distort the price of energy to engineer a colour-of-the-month social outcome.

B.C.'s carbon tax started at $10 per tonne in 2008 and on July 1st, the carbon tax goes up by 50 per cent, to $15 per tonne. Of course, that’s before the GST is charged. That’s right, the federal government charges GST on the carbon tax, bumping the carbon tax increase to 58 per cent - a pure tax grab.

Why are citizens forced to pay more for energy? Because governments adapt their policies to consensus opinion to win votes. The green lobby convinced the Premier of a consensus on global warming, and the popularity of creating policies around it. So imagine his surprise when, after gasoline prices popped over $1.50 per litre mark for the first time ever (thanks in part to the carbon tax), the NDP's popularity jumped as well. Coincidence? Doubtful.

The federal Liberals learned this the hard way after their carbon tax was overwhelmingly rejected by Canadian voters in the 2008 General Election. The so-called Green Shift was rightly seen as a tax grab designed to shift money out of consumers' pockets for new social engineering schemes.

The green lobby says government should add a carbon tax to fossil fuels because they insist carbon dioxide is a pollutant and a carbon tax would force polluters to pay for their misdeeds. Except carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. According to Environment Canada, "air pollution is made of various chemicals and particles that contaminate the atmosphere around the Earth.” Carbon dioxide is a clear, colourless, odourless gas that each one of us breathes out every second of every day.

People still have to drive and heat their homes and increasing the cost of energy will do little to force people to behave otherwise. It will create hardship and difficult choices as people decide whether to enroll their children in soccer programs because of the cost of driving. But as more people realize the climate changes, always has and always will, the carbon tax will fall out of favour as a tool of coercion.

People pay taxes so government can provide essential services, not to be manipulated in some social engineering experiment. Heating our homes and driving our cars are already expensive enough. It's time for government to eliminate the carbon tax and stop creating more worries for families who are already concerned about jobs, the economy and their future wellbeing.