Ottawa's Kyoto Cost Rise 100 Per Cent in Seven Weeks

Ottawa - The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) reacted to the release of Ottawa's Kyoto Protocol implementation plan. The federal government today pegged the seven-year cost to meet Canada's Kyoto targets at $10-billion. When the federal budget was tabled - only seven weeks ago - the government unveiled a five-year plan that would cost $5-billion.

"The release of this plan is long overdue and because of Ottawa's inability to manage this file, implementing the Kyoto agreement is going to cost Canadian taxpayers significantly more," said CTF federal director John Williamson. "The environment minister today admitted the only way to meet Kyoto targets is to subsidize business and buy 'hot air' from Russia. In other words, we will pay Russians so we may heat our homes in the dead of winter. Ottawa obviously has too much of our tax money to spend if it can propose and enact such harebrained policies."

The international treaty, which came into effect on February 16, requires Canada to reduce average carbon dioxide emissions to 6 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12, but because the country's output of greenhouse gases has increased by some 30 per cent since 1990 dramatic cuts in energy output are needed in short order. The federal government ratified the Kyoto agreement in 2002.

"Canada will need deeper cuts, over a shorter period of time, and this will have a negative impact on the economy," noted Williamson. "Ottawa will spend billions of dollars, increase the cost to businesses and slow the economy, which will mean lower wages and reduced family incomes. And despite the high cost, Canada will still not meet its targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions."

The CTF recently updated projections on the cost to Canadian families to implement the Kyoto Protocol to $3,000 per household - per year - by 2010. The update is based on its November, 2002, study Counting the Costs: The Effects of the Federal Kyoto Strategy on Canadian Households. The original report predicted the price increases and wage reductions needed to bring energy consumption down to Kyoto levels would reduce annual real net household income by $2,700.

"The more Canadians learn about Kyoto the less they like it. Particularly when it will mean making drastic changes to our way of life without a corresponding reduction in global emissions or an improvement in our quality of life here at home," concluded Williamson.