The Dion Carbon Tax Shaft: The Deeper You Drill, The Scarier It Gets!
Greg Weston of the Toronto Sun starts off today’s column this way:
“While Stephane Dion promises the Liberals’ proposed $15-billion environmental tax would provide riches for the poor and tax cuts for all, he fails to mention consumers in most parts of the country would be in for some shocking electricity bills.
In Ontario, for instance, government figures show Dion’s plan would add at least 20% to the overall annual cost of generating electricity across the province.
The impact would be as bad or even worse in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and much of the Maritimes, regions with generating stations powered by fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas.”
He goes on to illustrate how that M. Dion’s Carbon Tax Grab would “slap a whopping tax of $1.1 billion just on those five [fossil fuel burning] power stations” in Ontario. That is the “trickiest” part of Dion’s tax grab - it is INDIRECT TAXATION so that the Liberals can claim that it was the greedy power and oil companies that raised prices!
“A spokesman [from Ontario Power] says the utility would not comment on any political party’s proposed policy, but ‘obviously someone would have to pay for increased costs.’ ” Weston reported. “In this case, that would be either Ontario consumers or provincial taxpayers who would be zapped for more than $1 billion a year”.
That brought about the question, “Exactly what would be the impact on the Maritimes, particularly New Brunswick?”
While Ontario’s power generation is only 30% dependent on fossil fuels, NB Power’s domestic generating capacity relies on carbon fuel for 42% of it’s total capacity. That means we will get hit even harder than Ontario.
According to NB Power’s own environmental disclosures (p.18/46):
“Approximately 90% of New Brunswick’s 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions come from the combustion of fossil fuels with electricity generation accounting for 47% or nine million tonnes.”
NB Power recently asked the Public Utilities Board for a 10% raise in utility rates, and that cost small businesses in NB $21 million. What do you think will happen when the Dion Liberals slap $360 million onto the utility’s operating budget? That is an additional 24% increase that will be passed on to consumers and taxpayers.
Canadians are already suffering from the high cost of electricity and fuel. Places like Ontario, Alberta and the Maritimes will be particularly hard hit under Dion’s plan. As Greg Weston aptly notes: “By coincidence, the one province where electricity bills won’t be touched by Dion’s plan is the one with all that hydro power — Quebec. Imagine that.“
The Dion Carbon Tax Shaft: The deeper you drill, the scarier it gets!
