NDP's Layton promises investments

[Wilber]

Once again, gas is not left alone. It is taxed at 10 cents per litre.

Diesel still comes off better than gas. That won't change.

It will change the actions of some who might of otherwise invested in the lower emitting technology but we've been around that bush enough times for me to realize you could care less.

[jdobbin]

It will change the actions of some who might of otherwise invested in the lower emitting technology but we've been around that bush enough times for me to realize you could care less.

How so? Do you get less mileage with the change? Will your fuel be taxed more than gas? Will you not save with a diesel engine?

You keep arguing for no tax on the diesel but the tax applies fairly to all carbon.

However, by all means vote Conservative next election since it is estimated that their plan will add 40 cents a litre to fuel costs.

Edited August 12, 2008 by jdobbin

[Wild Bill]

It will change the actions of some who might of otherwise invested in the lower emitting technology but we've been around that bush enough times for me to realize you could care less.

Wilber, there may be another reason for the confusion. You seem to be arguing from a more scientific definition of carbon and emissions, considering the actual carbon in a fuel, the amount formed from combustion and so on.

Your opponents may not be so scientific. A carbon tax can be a purely arbitrary thing. Some government committee made up of people who couldn't even tell you how a light bulb works will put out a list of applicable carbon taxes to different products. The list won't necessarily be based on pure science. Rather, it could be based on political definitions of what is harmful and how much in comparison to something else.

I suspect this is the sort of list we would get from Dion and company. Trying to question a specific amount of tax with specific fuels with scientific facts would be futile.

[jdobbin]

Your opponents may not be so scientific. A carbon tax can be a purely arbitrary thing. Some government committee made up of Ypeople who couldn't even tell you how a light bulb works will put out a list of applicable carbon taxes to different products. The list won't necessarily be based on pure science. Rather, it could be based on political definitions of what is harmful and how much in comparison to something else.

The carbon tax was proposed by economists and supported by scientists as being transparent and fair. How do you think they are arbitrary in application? Carbon is treated the same across the board.

[Wild Bill]

The carbon tax was proposed by economists and supported by scientists as being transparent and fair. How do you think they are arbitrary in application? Carbon is treated the same across the board.

No, Dion TELLS me that what you said was true! And of course, he got to pick the economists and scientists that lent him the support.

It's like the old story about how 4 out of 5 doctors prefer Aspirin. You may have to ignore hundreds of doctors who disagree to get that final fifth one but once you do you can legally make such a claim.

I'm sorry but I give M Dion's story as much credibility as a Witness at my door on a Sunday morning. When you claim the Bible that you yourself wrote to be infallible because you yourself believe it to be, then I politely shut the door.

[jdobbin]

No, Dion TELLS me that what you said was true! And of course, he got to pick the economists and scientists that lent him the support.

Dion picked Paul Volcker to say a carbon tax was the preferred choice?

[bk59]

Fuels don't have efficiencies, only the machines that use them.

In terms of emitting greenhouse gases, more efficient fuels are fuels that release less greenhouse gases per litre. This is a characteristic of the fuel. NOT the machine that burns the fuel.

Lets get something straight right off. Fuel does not contain CO2. There ain't no O in oil so to speak. CO2 is produced when the fuel is burned and the carbon in it combines with oxygen in the atmosphere to produce CO2.

Yes. Very good. CO2 is produced when the fuel is burned. Now here was my point: different fuels give off different amounts of CO2 when burned.

I am aware that a liter of diesel contains more carbon than a liter of gasoline. Using your numbers 16% more but if the VW diesel goes over 50% farther (federal government figures) on that liter it has to emit over 30% less per kilometer than the gas engine.

Those numbers were not the amount of carbon in a litre. They were the amount of CO2 that gets produced by burning a litre of the fuel. This is pretty simple stuff and it's all written down right there.

The carbon tax taxes carbon.

Exactly! Which is why it taxes all carbon, regardless of its source. It makes no sense to create a patchwork of taxing some carbon, but not taxing other carbon, and then maybe taxing some carbon in some applications, but not in others. Just make it simple: tax all sources of carbon.

By adding an additional tax to diesel and not gasoline, it puts a new tax on the more efficient and lower emitting technology while leaving the more wasteful and higher emitting one alone.

In the first four years it is entirely possible that people will see it this way. So be it. It has already been talked about here why it is that gasoline is already taxed at the appropriate rate and therefore it does not need to be modified.

But this plan isn't about a four year time period, it's about putting in place a system that taxes carbon over the long term to bring about long term change. The simple fact is that the existing tax on gas will be used as a carbon tax on gas. After four years all carbon will be taxed at the same rate. More efficient fuels and (pay attention here) more efficient methods of using those fuels will result in the taxpayer saving money. This holds true even during the first four years, even if you refuse to see that.

[bk59]

Wilber, there may be another reason for the confusion. You seem to be arguing from a more scientific definition of carbon and emissions, considering the actual carbon in a fuel, the amount formed from combustion and so on.

Let's not go too far here. Someone can post about the carbon content in a fuel, but if someone can't even admit the simple fact that some fuels produce less carbon emissions than others then there is a problem. Because we are interested in the carbon emissions, not the carbon content. There is a relation between the two obviously, but one is what the carbon tax actually taxes (the emissions) and the other isn't.

Wilber is only looking at one specific example of how two specific fuels are used. That is all well and good. But the point is to tax the sources of greenhouse gas emissions and not create a patchwork of taxing random things based on conditions that change every year (e.g. vehicles). Which is more scientific: taxing all emissions at a certain rate or picking and choosing different methods of producing emissions and then taxing them at different rates or not at all? I would think that picking and choosing would result in the type of political manipulation that you talk about in your post. Which is why I am glad to see that Dion did not do that in his plan. He set a rate on carbon emissions and left it at that.

Your opponents may not be so scientific. A carbon tax can be a purely arbitrary thing.

It can be. But in this case the carbon tax is being applied equally, at the same rate, to every source of emissions. Or it will be at the end of the fourth year. I don't really see having a four year transition period as a problem.

Trying to question a specific amount of tax with specific fuels with scientific facts would be futile.

The facts remain very simple (as I have stated before): you will pay less carbon tax with a diesel car than a gasoline car since you use less diesel than gasoline. But diesel should still be taxed because it still emits carbon dioxide when burned. There is this idea that everyone will run away from diesel because it will be seen as having a higher price per litre. Well guess what? It already has a higher price per litre and it is still cheaper to use over a period of time than gas. The carbon tax will not change that. People who do the math now will still be able to do the math after a carbon tax is introduced. People who don't do the math now still won't do the math after a carbon tax is introduced.

[White Doors]

Nope. The reason that gas will be exempt from this tax is that the current gas tax is equal to a carbon tax of approximately $42 per tonne of carbon. After four years the end goal is to tax carbon at a rate of $40 per tonne of carbon. So there is no point in adding tax to gas since it is already where they want it. Think of it as renaming the current gas tax to a carbon tax at the end of the fourth year.

But make no mistake. If, after four years, the carbon tax is increased to something like $50 per tonne of carbon then you will see the tax on gas rising to keep it consistent.

ahhh.. So we already HAVE a carbon tax? awesome.

And we are renaming it?

well that warms the cockles of my heart. Go Dion!

haha, that is so typical of the federal liberal party. We will rename the excise gasoline tax to be a carbon tax - this is our plan to fight global warming! hahaha

All image no substance. At least the NDP actually want to do something about the problem.

But I am happy that we have been fighting the global warming beast for the past 20 + years.

I am happy to know that I have been doing my part. Imagine how hot it would have been this summer if I wasn't paying that excise er, carbon tax, for all of these years!

Edited August 13, 2008 by White Doors

[madmax]

It will rise $200 a year on average with a $40 per tonne carbon tax.

Kiss my LPC MP goodbye.....

In its final days before collapsing, Paul Martin's Liberal government introduced a billion dollars worth of home heating rebates. But as the temperature goes down and Canadians' hunger for heating fuel goes up, there's more appetite for relief from high fuel prices.

$200? You are going to take $200 out of peoples pockets?

Brilliant.

[madmax]

Ironic that the thread that offers current tax monies to go towards transit, is being countered by people who believe the best way to deal with a problem is to take their money away.

Btw, for those Diesel Crazy, Mexican Buying Bug Loving VW Boneheads.

This links for you.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive....html?series=19

January 2008

I’m behind the wheel of a preproduction 2009 Volkswagen Jetta, which is powered by a 2.0-liter turbo-charged, direct-injected diesel engine that, even as I leave the speed limit in tatters, is averaging nearly 50 mpg. Equally important, what’s coming out of the tailpipe is no dirtier than the emissions from the 35-mpg econoboxes I can now see in my rearview mirror. Speed, fuel efficiency and minimal emissions? These aren’t characteristics usually associated with diesel-powered vehicles. But they will be.

Most Americans have a bad impression of diesel cars. We think of them as loud, hard to start and foul-smelling. We sneer at them for lacking the get-up-and-go of their gasoline-powered cousins. And we dislike them for their perceived environmental sins, chiefly the polluting brew of sulfur and nitrogen compounds that they emit into the atmosphere. All those complaints were fair a generation ago, when the twin energy crises of the 1970s propelled diesels into national popularity and kept them there for a decade. Back then, many drivers ignored diesel’s faults, or were unaware of them, because diesel cars ran 30 percent farther on a gallon of fuel than similar gasoline-powered cars. It felt savvy to buy a diesel, even daring. Then fuel prices dropped in the mid-1980s, and drivers abandoned their clattering, odoriferous fuel sippers. They went back to gasoline.

Today, diesel powertrains are on the map again, for both car manufacturers and efficiency-minded drivers. The technology could be here to stay, even if fuel prices (improbably) decline. The new cars run as well as their gasoline-powered competitors. And as for the emissions problems of the past—well, the dirty bird of fossil fuels isn’t so dirty anymore.....continued

There are alternatives to the Liberal Environmental Scam.

[madmax]

haha, that is so typical of the federal liberal party. We will rename the excise gasoline tax to be a carbon tax - this is our plan to fight global warming! hahaha

......I have been doing my part. Imagine how hot it would have been this summer if I wasn't paying that excise er, carbon tax, for all of these years!

GST/HST

Name changes work in a campaign.

Good eh.

[White Doors]

GST/HST

Name changes work in a campaign.

Good eh.

Not a relevant example.

One is the goods and services tax (GST) and one is where the provincial sales tax (PST) is combined with the GST.

That becomes the Harmonized sales tax. Why you ask? Because they are charged as one tax. What difference does that make you ask? Well, we with the HST no longer have to pay a tax on a tax as those provinces that do not have it - hence making the tax hit less and easier on business to calculate.

They are harmonzed. two taxes acting as one tax.

Keep looking.

[madmax]

Not a relevant example.

One is the goods and services tax (GST) and one is where the provincial sales tax (PST) is combined with the GST.

That becomes the Harmonized sales tax. Why you ask? Because they are charged as one tax. What difference does that make you ask? Well, we with the HST no longer have to pay a tax on a tax as those provinces that do not have it - hence making the tax hit less and easier on business to calculate.

They are harmonzed. two taxes acting as one tax.

Keep looking.

Chretian was going to eliminate the hated GST.

Eliminate=Harmonize

Remember.

Edited August 13, 2008 by madmax

[White Doors]

Chretian was going to eliminate the hated GST.

Eliminate=Harmonize

Remember.

I guess I am not following.

[madmax]

I guess I am not following.

No problem. I am not always clear in my posts.

The Green Shift is taking a tax on Gas and Renaming it as a Carbon Tax. In effect having no change on the environment or the tax itself.

The GST/ was to be eliminated, but instead was renamed HST but the savings to the consumer was insignificant, while I will agree it made somethings easier for retailers. Eliminating the tax as promised would have done more for retailers. In effect having no change on the tax itself.

However, people felt Shafted and Betrayed after Chretian Failed to follow through on eliminating the GST

The Green Shift is another tax grab to shaft the voter.

Edited August 13, 2008 by madmax

[White Doors]

No problem. I am not always clear in my posts.

The Green Shift is taking a tax on Gas and Renaming it as a Carbon Tax. In effect having no change on the environment or the tax itself.

The GST/ was to be eliminated, but instead was renamed HST but the savings to the consumer was insignificant, while I will agree it made somethings easier for retailers. Eliminating the tax as promised would have done more for retailers. In effect having no change on the tax itself.

However, people felt Shafted and Betrayed after Chretian Failed to follow through on eliminating the GST

The Green Shift is another tax grab to shaft the voter.

Ok, I follow now.

[jdobbin]

We will rename the excise gasoline tax to be a carbon tax

I'm till wondering why the Tories have not ended the excise tax as they promised in the election. Is that their carbon tax or is it just to pad government revenues?

[jdobbin]

Kiss my LPC MP goodbye.....

You think? The Tory plan was said to add up to 40 cents a litre to gas. The NDP plans has similar numbers for their plan.

Or are the Tory and NDP plans not going to cost a thing?

I call it a scam.

$200? You are going to take $200 out of peoples pockets?

Brilliant.

The last quote wasn't from me.

[bk59]

ahhh.. So we already HAVE a carbon tax? awesome.

And we are renaming it?

well that warms the cockles of my heart. Go Dion!

haha, that is so typical of the federal liberal party. We will rename the excise gasoline tax to be a carbon tax - this is our plan to fight global warming! hahaha

All image no substance. At least the NDP actually want to do something about the problem.

But I am happy that we have been fighting the global warming beast for the past 20 + years.

I am happy to know that I have been doing my part. Imagine how hot it would have been this summer if I wasn't paying that excise er, carbon tax, for all of these years!

If the entire plan consisted of simply renaming the excise tax, then I would agree with you. But that is not the entire plan. Let's be honest here, there is a reason that the rate of $40 per tonne of emissions was chosen. It was chosen because that is what the current gasoline tax works out to. It might be politically convenient, but this does not make the plan somehow invalid. At the end of four years Canada would have a carbon tax that treats all carbon emissions the same. That is a valid goal. And the entire plan, even without raising taxes on gasoline in those first four years, WILL make a difference. There is substance there.

The tax renaming is no different than most political games that get played. Remember all those tax credits Harper recently gave us? They were always touted as worth (for example) $100. When in reality the actual money people would save was only a percentage of that because you didn't get $100, you got $100 off your taxable income (i.e. you only saved something like 15% of that $100). My only point here is that all political parties play games with renaming things and shuffling numbers. But when you look at the complete proposal Dion has put forward for a carbon tax... it isn't bad. And the complete plan looks like it will have some serious impact on Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.

[bk59]

The Green Shift is taking a tax on Gas and Renaming it as a Carbon Tax. In effect having no change on the environment or the tax itself.

The Green Shift then goes further and taxes other sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Which will effect the behaviour of Canadians and the environment.

The Green Shift is another tax grab to shaft the voter.

The Green Shift is a combination of a new tax, a reduction in income taxes, and a few new tax rebates. A better tax grab would have been to just introduce the new tax and not return all of that money back to taxpayers through other tax reductions.

[madmax]

You think? The Tory plan was said to add up to 40 cents a litre to gas. The NDP plans has similar numbers for their plan.

Or are the Tory and NDP plans not going to cost a thing?

Based on Dions Green Shift...

the LPC MP is toast , is what I think.

I call it a scam.

The last quote wasn't from me.

Fair enough.

[jdobbin]

Based on Dions Green Shift...

the LPC MP is toast , is what I think.

In favour of what? Three other parties who likely have higher costs planned for them?

[madmax]

The Green Shift then goes further and taxes other sources of greenhouse gas emissions. Which will effect the behaviour of Canadians and the environment.

The Green Shift is a combination of a new tax, a reduction in income taxes, and a few new tax rebates. A better tax grab would have been to just introduce the new tax and not return all of that money back to taxpayers through other tax reductions.

If you say it enough times........

[madmax]

In favour of what? Three other parties who likely have higher costs planned for them?

The LPC have chosen to sell the Green Shift. It will be at the cost of my MP.