Most of you have likely received your $100 ‘Climate Action Dividend’ cheque from the Liberal government by now. The idea was that we spend the money on something ‘green’ that will keep us from driving everywhere such as a pair of running shoes, a transit pass or a bicycle. It was to get us thinking about not driving our cars as much.
Well, the majority of B.C. residents probably just put the money towards a tank of gas.
With the insane gasoline prices and now this 2.4 cents a litre hike, the average tank costs over $75 to fill. And that is assuming a smallish car with fairly decent gas mileage. A truck is costing more like $110 for a single tank of gas.
Sure, we’d like to be able to walk everywhere or ride a bike but it’s just not a viable option for us small towners, tradesmen, loggers and ranchers.
In our valley, and as it is in the rest of the largely rural B.C., we have huge distances to cover from one end of the region to the other. If you work in Radium and live in Canal Flats, is riding a bike really an option? And with the ridiculous shortage of places to rent, those of us who will never be able to afford a house here, have to be willing to travel long distances to get to work.
Transit is the big push for the Liberal government. Just take a bus or city train, they say. What train? Shall we hobo it up and sneak on the CP Rail?
Our one transit bus (which the getting of is a huge accomplishment that we are not belittling at all) doesn’t run on a regular enough basis or cover a large enough area to make it feasible to use for most of the valley residents. We need 50 buses that run every 1/2 hour and cover the entire valley.
The ironic thing was how hard the Columbia Valley Transit Committee had to fight to even get this transit bus. If the Liberals think transit is such a great idea, why did they put off this region for so long before they let us have our one bus?
Okay, but rural B.C. issues aside, if this is going to make a huge difference in fixing current environmental issues we should all just choke up the extra money for gas and quit complaining.
But as our local MLA Norm Macdonald pointed out, by the Liberal government’s own numbers the best case scenario is that this gas tax will result in a tiny 2.8% cut in emissions by 2020. And that’s only if we all manage to stop driving as much. The Liberals talk as if just implementing the tax will magically cut emissions.
So what is the point? Shouldn’t the plan include more of the big polluters instead of the already overtaxed citizens who have no choice but to drive around our huge province?
Was the $11 million that Macdonald said it cost just to send out the Climate Action Dividends worth it? $11 million just for mailing costs! Are we just being bought off? Isn’t it a bit of an insult to our intelligence to think we could be happy about the $100 cheque when this tax will cost us way more than that over the next year? Whose pocket do you think that $11 million came out of?
Our local MLA also pointed out that the issue of carbon tax was pushed through legislature in only two hours. Shouldn’t something that will end up costing B.C. residents so much in the long term be talked about and discussed for more than two hours?
Of course, this is supposed to be a revenue neutral thing that we’ll get back in the form of income tax breaks etc. But couldn’t there have been some other way to cut emissions by a measly 2.8% in the next 12 years? Some way that wouldn’t hurt us rural residents who don’t have a choice about whether or not we drive? This was definitely one of those plans thought up by a Lower Mainland resident who is able to step out of his doorstep onto a transit bus, who just doesn’t get why us backwards small town people can’t get with it!
It’s a joke to act like only our gas prices are going to be affected by this. Even the greenie that is able to ride his bike to work will pay for this tax. Every time gas prices go up, our groceries and every product that is moved about by freight also go up in price. If a tradesperson has to pay more for gas to get to your house to unplug your toilet, do you think he’ll just swallow that extra cost? No, you’ll be paying for that too.
And this isn’t the end of it. Eventually this tax is going to go up to add 7 cents a litre to our gas prices.
Green is good. Keeping the Earth healthy is good. But c’mon people. This was the best that you could come up with? Really? B.C. residents deserve better. E.B.