Refine the Carbon Tax

Overall, I don’t support the current proposed form of a carbon tax.

I agree, that theoretically it is a great idea that could help Canada curb their emissions and embrace more environmentally friendly ways of living. But, the instilling a carbon tax could hurt Canadian’s too. The Premiere of Alberta, Ralph Klein, says that Albertans agree that the carbon tax is missing a key element-it doesn’t say how much they would have to pay. I agree with his proposal, a carbon tax is a great idea until you have to produce the money to pay for it. A carbon tax could be supported by everyone if it only required to pay $10 a month, but paying $100 a month could cause problems.

I believe that there are better ways to reduce emissions than putting a tax on anything and everything carbon. The Liberal’s deny the idea of supporting a carbon tax, and instead will soon announce a plan for helping large polluters curb their emissions in a way that honours Canada’s commitment to the Kyoto Protocol.

Similar to the Liberal’s claims and future ideas, The Conservative party of Canada also rejects the idea of having a carbon tax. The Minister of Environment, John Baird, said, "I disagree with the notion of a carbon tax. Our approach will be to provide regulation for industry to ensure we reduce both greenhouse gas emissions and reduce air pollutants."

On a web-journal, an author claims that having a gas tax would wreck havoc on the poor, as they could depend on things like their cars to travel to work so they can make money. I agree with this authors proposal to tax certain specific things, not everything from carbon. It would be too much of a shock to impose a carbon tax on everything all at once.

All in all, I believe that a carbon tax would end up hurting Canadians. If a carbon tax could be refined to certain things that are made of carbon, it would ease the shock and the costs that would be forced on the people of Canada with the introduction of a carbon tax.