blueblood

Won't this have an effect on inflation?

Geoff: Some thought the ballot had a loaded question, using I in the free choice was supposed to be some kind of psych thing. The more I look at it, I am becoming more convinced that the wheat board will survive if there is marketing choice. With support as high as 75% I don't think the wheat board is going anywhere. Now that the wheat board will have to compete, in theory they should be able to get us a higher price. The CWB has a chance now to become a very competitive marketer of grain and to turn over profits. Like it or not with the biofuel industry about to eat up the surplus of grain and oilseed we won't have to worry for too much longer. Canola doesn't fall under the wheat board and it's price is getting to be sky high. prices As far as using tax dollars to hand out "welfare" that is getting ridiculous. Using geoff's tax logic would help us the most and what farmers contribute in taxes can go into funding co-operatives to compete in order to drive input costs down. I heard of a guy who can eliminate his fuel inputs. A co-operative is pretty much the same as a corporation except that it's not how many shares you buy determines how much money you get it's that one shareholder gets one share and the profits are divided up equally and a cheque comes in the mail once a year. page We're almost out of the woods.

I'd say the biggest threat in the world is unknown. I hate to bring up the nazi argument, but they came from nowhere and in a short time almost took over the world.

Wow, I don't think I'd accuse August of trolling. That was an interesting point of view, not ban worthy, i've seen worse trolling on here. Would you be that fiesty if it was the tories in the liberal's shoes? People are allowed to say what they want and sometimes it can be right offensive. Harper said something right offensive, so what.

Where do they put the waste? I wonder if they could drill a hole past the mantle and chuck the waste down there. I'm not sure how radioactive waste reacts to extreme temperatures.

I voted tory because I agree with their policies and ag has improved significantly under the tories than the liberals during the tory mandate.

Nowhere have I seen a proposal for $1.10 a litre tax, so where does the $2 come from? Somebody was saying that gas should be $2 earlier in the thread.

A tax is really going to shut down the oil fields in Alberta...your nation? really...didnt think that could happen. Oh boy....come on. A tax on the producer as pointed out by myata means the exports get dinged too. Otherwise then only the CDN end user pays a tax. Separation....what the hell does that nonsense mean. Laughable really...life that tough in Alberta these days?Going to take your oil field and go home?Thats what it sounds like. What is Canada now, 3 distinct parts.....All of Canada , Quebec and Alberta?. I'd say 6 parts, Vancouver-Vancouver Island, West of Winnipeg to the BC interior, Ontario, Quebec, the Maritimes, and the North. I'm sure you don't want to pay 2 bucks a litre for gas if you don't have to.

Just wondering with all the left-right arguing, who would you vote for in the next election. I'm just curious to see who would win just doing a "mini poll" in the forum.

The market is the _only_ effective way to get consumers to change behavoir. With gas prices today you will have to drive a Toyota Prius 300,000 kms to _break even_ on the additional cost of the vehicle. That means there is no economic incentive to buy those vehicles and a $2000 subsidy is not going to make a difference.The same issue is true for public transit. Most people will choose to purchase and insure a car for personal reasons. However, once they have sunk the money in to a car the incremental cost of driving to work sometimes less than the cost of taking transit and it is more convenient. Better transit service is not going to change that - higher gases prices will. I am no economist, but won't higher gas prices like that bring on more inflation? Bring on the bio-fuel program, geothermal heating, maybe close downtown city areas to cars, more fuel efficient cars, smaller cars, private companies into developing "greener" powers. Also by upping the tax, it isn't going to make that much of a difference, just people are going to not have as much money, the economy takes a little hit, and people will still be driving. Why not do the smart thing and keep money in our pockets.

I don't believe that is the case. My understanding is that a significant portion of GHGs are emitted by consumers driving vehicles. More importantly, a lot of the fuel consumed by consumers is for 'lifestyle' reasons. i.e. they don't need an SUV but they like to drive them or they choose to live in a house in the suburbs and commute instead of buying an apartment/townhouse that is closer to work.If we want to address GHGs we have to go after the consumers. Which is why V8 truck chassis SUVs aren't selling as well. The more fuel efficient crossovers are selling better. You can go after the consumer but there is better ways at going about it.

Good point, why should rural Canadians who don't have access to public transit subsidize GHG reduction while urban canadians can hop on a bus and get off scott free. The carbon tax idea gets worse all the time.

How does this sound:The government announces that tax on gas will be phased in over 5 years that increases the average price to $2.00/liter. If the international price of oil rises then the tax will be reduced accordingly - the tax is to ensure a minimum price - not generate revenue. All revenue will be returned to the province where the revenue is collected with no strings attached except the requirement that they cannot use to money in ways that defeats the purpose of the tax. All industries which require the use of fuel (farming, trucking, taxis, etc) will be entitled to a tax rebate equal to the tax levied. This is a short term measure intended to ensure that the taxes do not bankrupt existing businesses. However, these business will be expected to provide plans for how they will reduce GHGs in other ways to qualify for the rebate. Diesel already costs an arm and a leg, you can bet your ass I have plans to reduce GHGs as much as possible already in place. Industries that require the use of fuel are the ones the "greenies" are going after like the tar sands and such. The industries do most of the polluting and slapping a tax on some guy for driving his car to get him to drive less is almost futile. It sounds like a mini kyoto. Pissing off the population like that with a sky high tax I don't think is worth the little bit of GHG reduction your plan has. The tory gov't actually had a very good plan before it was ripped apart. You'd be better off giving the private sector tax incentives to develop cleaner power and stuff like that and cutting from useless gov't programs to cover the cost.

That'd be the most visable change, $2.00 gas the next day. Europeans pay that. Now, Farmers might get their tax free gas still, exempt from the Carbon Tax as well, but I think that'd be just a little bit ridiculous for me to have to pay for carbon to produce my product and not the farmers, you know what I mean? So ya, we are in agreement, a carbon tax's implications are far more widely reaching than we think. I think they were saying if any guy uses Carbon there should be a tax put on it, I think I'd be getting stung on it and hard as I use a lot of carbon. And your right that would be ridiculous. As far as tax free gas goes, property tax, income tax, and my GST more than picks up the slack there. All in all Carbon tax is bad news.

If you don't want to deal with the consumption issue, then a carbon tax strictly on fossil fuel production is absoutely unacceptable as Alberta would bare the vast majority of the burden. Why should Alberta pay the costs for all of Canadian's pollluting??? Just because we produce it?? So we pay more, produce the stuff... and those that use it face no consequence? Taxing production won't reduce emissions. If anything, increasing the variable cost sometimes encourages higher production volumes to produce acceptable ROI's for shareholders. We'll see production growth, government revenue growth and shareholder loss all at the same time. Could you imagine a worse scenario? If your not willing to pay $2.00 a litre for gas, you need not support a carbon tax, because that's the only way it can be implement fairly and with effect. The Ag sector would have to pay as well, it's not just oil and gas that pollute in Canada. The auto sector would have to slap pollution penalties on all their cars (producing a Hybrid still makes pollution). Your power bill would skyrocket if your province uses coal generators (everyone does right now I believe). Little examples of how devasting this concept would be to our economy. I don't even want a carbon tax in the first place. If there was one on production, I'd be hooped as well if not worse. 30 grand a year for fuel is quite enough thank you. Plus i'd get charged more for fertilizer either way and chemicals either way. Put that carbon tax idea to bed.

I saw that one too, pretty neat stuff. They make a killing too, each log is worth tens of thousands of dollars. But it's not just the emission from the rotting trees I'm concerned about (in fact, many trees are cut down before hydro dams so they don't get loose and plug up the dam). It's the loss of a massive carbon sink. One question though is how much coal and oil is saved vs. how much CO2 is absorbed? Which is the lesser of two evils?

A carbon tax based on consumption would be disasterous for the ag sector. the cost to bring us up to say David Suzuki's standards is too high. You would be forcing a lot of guys out of business. And it ends up hurting you guys in the end as the price of food would eventually sky rocket. We ourselves have done a good job in reducing our carbon output as it is.

I am no greenie. I thought that charging a battery doesn't take that much power, its not like im running an aeration fan or something. Maybe that's more of a solution if we could ever get off of coal fired plants. I'd have to see a chart or something about how many cars equal a coal plant in terms of pollution and how much power it would take to justify charging all those batteries. I see your point, but if it did end up working out that less pollutants were emitted in the grand scheme of things and the cost/benefits was reasonable then this isn't a bad idea. Also there are other means of power generation other than coal (most of which pollute as well). I'm not sure trees underwater release CO2 as I'm pretty sure stuff that's underwater won't rot as a lot of stuff that decomposes needs air to do it. I've seen on Discovery where they were salvaging 200 yr. old logs from the bottom of the lake that were perfectly preserved and they bury mine tailings underwater so no O2 can get at it. Something more ridiculous is how a V8 300 hp. Chevy Impala which gets close to 30mpg hwy. and for around 30 grand where a Civic is a 4 cyl. and gets close to 40 mpg hwy. and sells for around 20 grand. You get twice the car if your going for the Impala.

I'm surprised they haven't done diesel hybrids yet, think of the milage on those things. What about having cars that you can plug in. I'd think a city boy wouldn't mind something like that just to run to and from work. It would be plugged in almost all the time so you wouldn't have to worry about fuel and emissions. I'd say most vehicle emissions come from to and from work.

A gas is way more easier to use than a diesel. Diesel trucks are high maintenance and they are very finicky. They are no good in cold weather as they HAVE to be plugged in all the time. Parts are more expensive. Fuel filters, fuel pumps, glow plugs often have to be changed/replaced. Mind you if you are the person who doesn't own a vehicle past 50,000 km you don't have a problem. Plus if some jackass at the fuel station accidently puts gas in a diesel (this does happen) and you start it up, your vehicle is done. That being said I love my 3/4 ton diesel and like that it's easy on fuel plus can pull a lot. I'm getting excited about bio-diesel. With current Canadian demand of the stuff we figure we'd need to put down 4-5 million acres at least which is around half the canola crop. Over a period of time it should help things out a little bit environmentally, emphasis on a little bit. Plus it helps out the economy. To the guy who said that planting trees in all the backyards in the cities, I'm sorry but that's unfeasible. Trees die over time and for the trees your wanting in that small of a space is a death trap. 20+ foot trees in a small space is asking for trouble. To dispose of them in a city is something i can't put my mind around. I can't see manoeuvering a skitter to drag trees to a pile in the suburbs, or being able to fall the damn things safely. I'd say a good way to reduce CO2 would be to install Geothermal furnaces in Canadian homes. They are easy on power, affordable (tacked onto power bill), and saves a lot of heating oil/natural gas. I did it and it cut down on heating costs substancially. Man. hydro has a pretty good setup for this sort of thing.

They would probably do a better job at it than Canada would too.

Oh shit, when they expropriate a farmers land for the oil industry, he gets a cheque and told where to go. We expropriated this country, we've handed out far to many cheques, now time to tell them where to go.

I checked out Ireland on Wiki, now that is a country. They are ranked higher for living standards, lower unemployment, pound for pound more wealthy than we are, have no natural resources, have more foreign investment than we do, and on top of that have enough money to fund post secondary education. As a country we should be emberrassed considering of all the advantages we have over them.

It's not about arguing when life starts per se. It's about whether the rights of an unborn and undeveloped life should override the rights of a woman to do what she wants with her body. here's another question knowing that I believe that life starts at conception (this is my opinion) how does the right to do whatever you want override the right someone has to live? I'll give you this, if I believed that a fetus wasn't a life, I would be right with you in saying a woman has the right to do whatever she wants. If you had the choice of having it your way and killing an innocent person or not having it your way and letting the innocent person live, what would you choose? I'm not saying your belief is wrong, as no one here knows which side is truly right in the grand scheme of things (IMO it's all arbitrary). Who is anyone to say who is right in this type of debate of beliefs?

Hence why I loathe political parties. Put them all as independants and may the best person win.