Tackling climate change
Climate change is the greatest ecological challenge of our generation. The science is clear and compels us to act with urgency. Tackling this challenge also provides us with an opportunity to modernize our economy and take advantage of the green technologies before us.
Recently, the Liberal Party of Canada, released our plan to address this challenge, called the Green Shift. In principle, it is rooted in taxing what we don’t want, which is pollution, and reducing taxes on what we do want, income, savings, investment, etc. Our green shift will do the following: 1) introduce significant, broad based income tax reductions for individuals. For example – the tax rates on personal income will be reduced as follows: 15 to 13.5% for the lowest bracket, 22 to 21%, and 26 to 25% in the next brackets. Also, we have introduced a new universal child tax benefit worth $350 per child on top of existing child benefits; a $1850 refundable employment credit targeted to those Canadians who earn less than $50,000 per year; and we will make the disability tax credit refundable so that low income individuals who are disabled will also benefit.
Recognizing that small to medium sized businesses are the engine of our economy, we will reduce the corporate income tax to 14 per cent which will make our country one of the world’s most competitive tax jurisdictions. The small business corporate tax rate will be reduced by an additional 1 percentage point and there will be accelerated capital cost allowances for green technologies. Incentives will also be given for research and development as this is a pillar of innovation.
What will be taxed more heavily will be coal at 85%, heavy fuel oil at 12%, and kerosene at 10% to name a few. Gasoline taxes at the pump will not be increased in our plan. Home heating oil will go up 8.2% over four years, but will be offset by money allocated back to individuals through the rebates mentioned above.
It is important to know that this system will be revenue neutral which means that every dollar raised from taxing pollution will be returned to Canadians in tax cuts. The Auditor General will ensure that the Green Shift is revenue neutral and will release this information publicly. In the fourth year of the plan, the total revenue generated will be about $15-billion within the green shift, all of which will be returned to Canadians in new tax cuts. 700 large emitters, which are the worst polluters in Canada, mostly in heavy industry and power plants will account for the vast majority of the revenue generated from this shift.
Finally, with respect to the excessive price we are paying at the pump, 60% of the increase in gas prices we have seen in the last two years has been due to large institutional investors moving billions of dollars rapidly into the oil and gas sector. This is pure speculation, done in order to turn a quick profit. It has nothing to do with supply and demand. Yet, it is the ordinary citizen who is paying the price for this over-weaning greed. I have proposed that our government, work with other countries, particularly the USA and Great Britain, to plug loopholes in the system to prevent these large institutional speculators from electronically manipulating the market in this way. It is far too dangerous to our economy and far too destructive to ordinary people’s lives for this to continue. If this change were to happen, the price of gas would be reduced by at least 30 to 40 cents per litre. This is what I am pushing for.
- Keith
Tackling climate change
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