B.C. Conservatives vow to kill carbon tax

By Jeremy Deutsch - Kamloops This Week - May 28, 2008

One B.C. political party plans to quash the province’s new carbon tax if it wins the May 2009 provincial election. The B.C. Conservative Party — which has no affiliation with the federal Conservative Party — has come out against the carbon tax, arguing it won’t have any beneficial effect on global warming. And the party plans to make it an election issue next spring. “I think the majority of British Columbians are unhappy about taxation in general and the carbon tax in particular,” B.C. Conservative Leader Wilf Hanni told KTW. The B.C. Liberals have introduced a carbon tax on fossil fuels, adding an estimated 2.4 cents to a litre of gasoline effective July 1. Instead, the B.C. Conservatives are suggesting incentives or subsidies for industry to develop alternative sources of energy. Hanni said the tax is an attempt to force people out their cars, but the problem as he sees it is that 95 per cent of B.C.’s geographical area doesn’t have adequate public transit. “You can’t force people out of their cars into transit when you don’t have public transit,” he said, adding the Interior and North will end up subsidizing public transit in the Lower Mainland.

While acknowledging the tax isn’t as high as the increased cost of gas in the free market, Hanni said the tax does make a bad situation worse. “All it will do is cost people more money to drive their cars and heat their homes,” he said. Hanni said his party wants to see a cleaner environment, but would rather concentrate efforts on encouraging individuals and industry to find and develop alternate sources of energy through positive re-enforcement, not punitive measures. “We are concerned the emphasis on global warming and the steps being proposed to deal with the so-called global warming are going to bankrupt the economy of the world,” he said. The B.C. Conservatives are also promising to eliminate the top three personal income-tax rates and reduce the remaining rate to eight per cent for income greater than $16,000 per year, reduce corporate income tax rates and reduce provincial sales tax by one per cent.