Langara College, January 28, 2007
Instructor: Francis Bula, Vancouver Sun

My name is Maureen Bader, and I am the BC Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

Thank you very much for inviting me to speak to you here today.

I'll start by telling you a bit about, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and the work we do.

We are a, non-profit, non partisan citizen's advocacy group. We have 65,000 voluntary supporters across the country. We have offices in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario covering provincial issues, and an office in Ottawa covering national issues.

The CTF was founded in 1990.

Our mission is three-fold: lower taxes, less waste and more accountable government.

And for journalists, unbiased reporting, getting both sides of the story, is an important goal.

The B.C. government has done a good job lowering taxes across the board. It may be turning away from that policy if it hits us with more carbon taxes. I'm here to talk to you today about the effects of the proposed carbon tax.

We all care about the environment - we all value a clean environment.

And we are very lucky here in Canada. We live in a wealthy society, and people in wealthy societies have time to care about more than just their basic needs
Needs like food and shelter - we have the luxury to care about the environment.

So, the environment in wealthy countries is far cleaner today than it has been in decades, and in some places centuries, as I'll discuss in a minute.

Carbon taxes are high on the radar screen right now.

Why? Because we value clean air.

The World Health Organization recently estimated that worldwide, 800,000 deaths -or 1.4% of all deaths-could be attributed to air pollution each year. In Canada, data from eight Canadian cities shows that 5,900 deaths can be linked to air pollution each year. In the UK, about 64,000 deaths are related to air pollution per year, which is a much higher number than the deaths from road accidents, at about 3,600 lives.
Yes, air pollution can kill.

So what's going on? We know air quality hasn't been getting worse. How will reducing carbon dioxide make the environment cleaner? Let's look at the data.

Over the past two decades, the level of some air pollutants in Metro Vancouver has fallen tremendously. For example, the level of sulfur dioxide, one of the nastiest air pollutants, has fallen by about half over the past 30 years, even with a growing population.

Particulate matter levels, one of the pollutants that can seriously affect human health have been relatively constant in recent years, with no apparent trend. But concentrations are lower than in the 1980's.

So air pollution in the Lower Mainland is better than it was 30 years ago, but we still have problems.

What about in other place? The air in London England is cleaner now than it has been since the Middle Ages.

And despite increasing UK traffic, particulate matter is actually expected to fall over the next ten years by, 30 percent.

The air is cleaner now in developed countries than it has been in a long time.

But in many developing countries today, air pollution is getting worse. But these countries are copying the development trends of the industrialised countries. When they grow sufficiently rich they, too, will start to reduce their air pollution.

So, as countries get wealthier, air pollution goes down.

But we still need to be concerned about toxic pollutants because they affect human health.

Let me repeat that - carbon dioxide is not a toxic pollutant.

Reducing carbon dioxide levels will do little if anything to improve air quality.

When we talk about reducing carbon dioxide, or CO2, we are not talking about making the air cleaner or reducing deaths from polluted air. We are talking about trying to influence global temperature.

Governments have already spent billions of dollars on CO2 reduction strategies, and CO2 levels continue to rise.

What is going on?

There are probably lots of reasons why governments have latched on to the global warming hysteria. For sure, they can make grand pronouncements about saving the environment.

But right now, this hysteria has created a handy excuse to raise taxes. And B.C.'s carbon tax is one of them.

What is a carbon tax?

Carbon taxes tax fossil fuels such as gasoline for the CO2 they release into the atmosphere.

If carbon taxes raise far more revenue than justified, and carbon taxes don't reduce CO2 levels, what do we have?

We have a carbon tax grab.

For example, in the UK , carbon taxes fill the government's coffers by $20.5 billion more each year than necessary to meet the social cost of it's CO2 emissions.

Britain's $1 per litre gasoline tax raises more than five times the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's estimate of the social cost of Britain's entire annual output of CO2 emissions.

Businesses are hit with a carbon tax called the Climate Change Levy. It is considered a revenue neutral way of reducing CO2 emissions. Yes, revenue neutral, but to businesses.

Why? Because, virtually the entire cost of CO2 reductions flows through to consumers.

It has meant the creation of a fuel poverty strategy in the UK - a subsidy to low income households so they can afford to pay to heat their homes in the winter.

In fact, the UK Treasury collects almost $1.6 billion per year with a Climate Change Levy. The budget for households suffering from fuel poverty is about $1.6 billion per year. There is a deep perversity about significantly increasing the cost of energy only to turn around and fund people in fuel poverty.

But has any of this done anything to reduce CO2 emissions?

Governments are spending billions of dollars to reduce man-made CO2, but CO2 levels continue to rise.

CO2 levels are 3% higher in the UK now than when the tax grab started, back in 2001.

Let's remember that back in Canada, the federal liberals spent $6 billion on CO2 reduction strategies, and CO2 increased by 33%.

So, in addition to being a tax grab and doing nothing to reduce CO2 levels, how will a carbon tax affect us?

When gasoline taxes go up climate change enthusiasts suggest people will drive less. Will soccer moms start walking? Not likely. In truth, it simply means more of the family budget is consumed by fuel, leaving less for other things, and those things may also become more expensive.

Remember, just about everything we consume is transported to us from somewhere. So the price of food, clothing, and all other basic necessities will also rise. Higher gasoline taxes equal higher transportation costs, which will be passed on to consumers for everything from food to clothing.

The main beneficiaries of this tax grab are governments - who frankly have more than enough of our incomes already.

As I said earlier, the environment improves as a country becomes wealthier. So, newer and more environmentally friendly technology will take longer to develop if we are made poorer through higher taxes.

We may also be missing out on opportunities to reduce pollution and save lives.

So we might want to ask ourselves, if CO2 reductions are really so important, is taxing business and consumers the right way to go about it?

In 2004, the Capital Regional District (Victoria and environs) CO2 levels were 13% lower than in 1995, primarily due to lower landfill gas emissions with the installation of a methane gas recovery system at the Hartland Landfill.

If carbon dioxide reduction is the true goal, why isn't the government looking at cost effective solutions like these that produce large, immediate, and measureable reductions, instead of trying to force people out of their cars?

The $11 billion in new transit spending announced this month will bring about 1.6% of the 40 million tones of CO2 reductions the Premier wants to achieve by 2020. That's only if people get out of their cars.

Spending billions of dollars for a half tonne CO2 reduction seems a bit over the top to me. Those billions would pay for a lot of new hospitals and schools. They could probably eliminate air pollution deaths. Is this a wise use of our tax dollars? Doesn't seem like it.

Do we want to sacrifice our standard of living and quality of life for a strategy that may hinder improvements to the environment and could actually hurt the environment if we are made worse off?

Since 2001, the B.C. economy has been booming, we have a labour shortage, so jobs have been plentiful.

But you are entering into the workforce as we sit on the brink of a recession.

We care about the environment but spending billions of dollars to reduce man-made CO2 will do nothing to improve human health.

Taxing people to get them to change their behaviour will have limited effect on ghg emissions.

For businesses who cannot reduce their emissions, they will likely move to other jurisdictions that don't have these cumbersome regulations.

Do we really want to exacerbate the economic downturn by adding more taxes and driving businesses from the province?

Human beings can do little to influence global temperatures.

We can, however, clean up the air. Remember, the air today is cleaner than it has been in decades in Canada, and centuries in the UK.

Will a carbon tax work? C02 emissions continue to rise in the UK as they do here.

If the government's goal is to increase the wellbeing of human beings and the environment, riding the global warming bandwagon, with little sense of cost or outcome, is not the solution.

By: Maureen Bader
Posted: January 27, 2008
Topic: British Columbia

Contact the regional director Jordan Bateman for further information.

Type: Related

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