A few in the BC Legislature, and the Official Opposition in Canada’s Parliament, want us to believe that carbon taxes must end to improve the country. They’re wrong, MP Alistair MacGregor has it right about carbon taxes making a major contribution to inflation, although the NDP MP misses an even more important point.
Now, NDP federal Member of Parliament MacGregor needs to take on the BC NDP government for accelerating production of fossil fuels. Any failure to speak out is inexcusable.
Categories: Climate Change
in-sights.ca 
Those of us who lived before the 1980s will remember the prevalence of smoking in homes, cars, planes and indoor and outdoor public places. Your hair, clothing and lungs couldn’t escape the second-hand smoke.
I remember my first teaching job, in 1976, where about half of the staff smoked in the staffroom. I didn’t spend a lot of time in there.
And then, as the 80s roll in, the tide began to change. In my recollection, the push came from the grassroots at first. By 1981, at my second school, smokers were significantly outnumbered and we voted to ban smoking in the school. Soon the whole district followed suit. I doubt any public school in the province made it out of the decade without butting-out.
In the mid-1980s, our friends in Hope established a new Pharmasave store and publicly declared that they would not sell tobacco products, due to the harmful effects of smoking.
The seeds of change were starting to take root.
By 1986, Vancouver City council had passed the beginnings of smoking bans in public spaces and work places. Restaurants and Bars (and bingo hall patrons) sure resisted — but the groundwork was being laid and enforced.
By 2008, smoking was prohibited in public places province-wide and, according to Wikipedia: “Smoking in Canada is [now] banned in indoor public spaces, public transit facilities and workplaces (including restaurants, bars, and casinos), by all territories and provinces, and by the federal government. As of 2010, legislation banning smoking within each of these jurisdictions is mostly consistent, despite the separate development of legislation by each jurisdiction.”
Federal and provincial governments have backed up the bans with anti smoking ads and unappealing packaging — and by slapping significant taxation on tobacco… so a pack of 20 cigarettes now costs upwards of $15.00 in most Canadian jurisdictions.
When was the last time most of us non-smokers arrived home with the stench of cigarette smoke in our hair and/or clothing, or cleaned the brown stains off window glass? We have come a LONG way since the 1980s and we have many people to thank for it.
So yes: we CAN affect environmental challenges via taxing, legislation — and social change.
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Carbon taxes..
Was it as good for you as it was for me?
Ahhhh.
TB
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Again, the Carbon Tax is nothing more than a placebo for government pretending to be doing something about global Warming and climate change, when in fact they are not.
Politicians and bureaucrats firmly believe than taxes will solve everything.
YOU CANNOT TAX YOURSELF AWAY FROM CLIMATE CHANGE.
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