Certainly, Ottawa’s opposition parties have suggested they would change the tax, but the longer it exists, the more difficult it becomes to eliminate it.
Of course, the tax’s popularity ultimately is not a particularly good measure of whether it is a good or bad one. If popularity were a measure of a tax’s worth, income tax and the goods and services tax would long ago have gone off the books.
So, in terms of the carbon tax, it is how best to operate within the parameters set out by the tax.
Therein lies some definite confusion because exactly what the carbon tax is supposed to achieve and exactly how it is calculated is something that is far from easily understood. It’s a bit of a convoluted approach to carbon being poured into the atmosphere where it can contribute to things such as global warming, itself something that is hotly debated by many.
In very general terms, a carbon tax is a fee imposed on the burning of carbon-based fuels (coal, oil, gas). The tax is seen as a way to force the reduction of fossil fuel usage, which is attributed to climate change. A carbon tax is a way to have users of carbon fuels pay for the suggested damage caused by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is reasoned if the tax is high enough, it will motivate a switch to clean energy.
In the process though, it hits many industries hard since alternate energy sources are not as easily accessed as one might think. For example, the farm sector doesn’t have a particularly viable alternative to diesel fuel when it comes to field operations that produce food for the world. However, farmers argue it is also time farmers were compensated for their contributions toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Most of that reduction has come from moving to less tillage, which frees the soil’s carbon into the air.
Provincial crop commissions and grower associations have been lobbying for a system that would recognize the contribution in a meaningful way. During the recent Crop Production Week meetings, numerous provincial crop organizations passed resolutions encouraging the Federal and provincial governments to recognize environmentally friendly farming practices that help reduce carbon emissions. The groups want a system that allows farmers to generate and sell carbon credits at rates that coincide with carbon pricing mechanisms already established by Ottawa.
The government of Alberta has had a provincially regulated carbon market in place since 2007.
Alberta farmers who comply have been creating and selling credits to carbon credit aggregators for more than a decade. While the sale of carbon credits would generally seem to add more confusion to the overall carbon question, it does make sense that, if farmers must pay a tax for using fuels that contribute to the problem, they should also stand to benefit from actions they take to mitigate the problem too.
- Calvin Daniels
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Disclaimer: opinions expressed are those of the writer.