Let’s all move to Quebec!
Congrats to the Quebec government for going out on a limb with a plan to put a “carbon tax” on fossil fuel products sold by the oil and gas industry. Not only that, but by 2010 the province wants to mandate California-grade auto emission standards on the auto sector and it plans to tighten up efficiency standards in the province’s building code.
The carbon tax will raise about $200 milion a year over six years that will go toward a Green Fund. Money from the fund will go toward green projects and improvements to public transportation. This is the type of leadership the country needs, and apparently Manitoba and Newfoundland/Labrador are following a similar path. The big question remains is whether Ontario has the gutts to take a similar route… so far it has remained suspiciously quiet on this issue.
This carbon tax may never see the light of day, but at least it will spark debate around the issue and get the country talking more about how to tackle emissions.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca