BC Carbon Tax

And so it begins. Our Provincial Carbon Tax precedes a Federal Carbon Tax (a mimicry of the BC idea) which may or may not come into existence. The difference? From what I can tell, the BC government seems to be making an effort to be transparent about where the money goes. They've passed legislation as insurance. Will money actual come back to the taxpayer? Is the tax really "revenue neutral"? Such assurances can only be discerned over time.

The idea of taxing fossil fuels, painful as it initially sounds, carries more positives than negatives. People love to talk about making changes to help the environment, but we're a lazy culture (myself included) and the movement to actually implement changes is slow. On a federal level, the commentary I've heard from our current government about environmental change has been flippant, barely an acknowledgment. They're more concerned with preservation of office than actually doing something worthwhile. So, to see the BC government move forward with policy that enforces change strikes me as bold, risky. When they first suggested the idea of such a tax, no one could have expected the immense increase in oil costs. So the risk with this move carries even more gravity than before. I like the sentiment of such a move.

What does this have to do about writing and the arts? Nothing. Sue me.


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