B8

By Trevor Holder
For the Daily Gleaner

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A new type of tax has surfaced in the Canadian political world.

It is called a carbon tax and, allegedly, it will help change the behaviour of Canadian consumers by increasing the tax burden on carbon-intensive products.

The intent is to entice Canadians to choose less of these types of goods and services. In Canada, and in New Brunswick, this new type of tax is mainly sponsored by the Liberals, with Premier Shawn Graham and federal opposition leader Stéphane Dion leading the charge.

Disguised as an environmental measure, the carbon tax Dion and Graham propose will undoubtedly drive up the price of everything - food, home heating, energy, fuel and transportation - with families and businesses footing the bill.

The impact would also be devastating because our province's geography is far from many of the principal trade corridors, and because we are a resource-based economy. Poverty will rise, while jobs, competitiveness and prosperity will go down.

Thousands of New Brunswickers will have to move out of the province to find new jobs and opportunities. Businesses will be forced to shut down and flee the province while foreign investors reconsider their business projects here.

New Brunswick doesn't need a carbon tax, nor can it afford its cataclysmic impact on our way of life and our well-being. Furthermore, the model proposed by the Graham-Dion Liberals has nothing to do with the environment.

It is, in fact, just a new way of collecting more tax dollars. The carbon tax money would end up in general revenues and would total more than $100 million in new, additional taxes for families and small businesses.

In addition, the money generated through this tax would not be earmarked for environmental projects, recycling initiatives or green ideas in schools.

Education should be an important component of any environmental plan. The provincial government can and must play a role in this.

Through the education system, it can teach the next generation of young New Brunswickers about the importance of a clean and healthy environment.

The opposition actually proposed a bill that would have secured one third of the Environmental Trust Fund (ETF) for green projects in school, showing students the importance of being engaged in the environment. The Liberal government defeated this initiative.

In addition, earlier this year they used $2 million from the ETF to help pay for non-environmental expenses, such as staplers, printers, computers and increasing senior management's salaries.

This is not an appropriate use of money allocated for green projects. It is important to note that the only reason they needed to raid the ETF was to make up for a $2 million cut to the operating budget of the Department of the Environment this fiscal year.

I agree that, as responsible citizens, we must look at reducing our environmental footprint.

We need to strengthen our environment and make it cleaner for future generations. There are ways to achieve this without impoverishing our families and our province.

With gasoline sold at well over a dollar a litre, New Brunswickers and Canadians are already looking for ways to curb their energy consumption and reduce cost.

Other energy sources will also be impacted by this tax. We don't need to pay a new tax to realize that we have to change our habits and our heavy reliance on energy.

I believe governments need to play a greater role in supporting private sector efforts to develop new energy sources and smarter ways of using non-renewable energy supplies. We need to offer alternative options to consumers, not a new tax.

A good, sound environmental plan would have to entail curbing energy consumption by providing greener choices, not further increasing the tax burden on families and businesses.

The Liberal tax scheme will not achieve this. It is just another tax grab, in addition to the proposed 25 per cent increase of the provincial component of the HST. The environment needs real leadership, not a carbon tax.

Trevor Holder is the MLA for Saint John Portland and the Official Opposition critic for environment. He served as environment minister in the PC Lord government.