Take a Sign | Frank de Jong - Carbon Tax Letter |
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| Wednesday, 23 January 2008 | |
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR A carbon tax should be used to create a revenue stream with which dispelled. Shifting taxes off jobs and onto fossil fuels makes people less expensive to employ, and makes carbon-dioxide emissions more expensive. The result will be more labour-intensive and value-added production (more jobs) and less pollution. Carbon taxes should be applied at entry point into Ontario, not at the gas pump or at the counter, so as to "green" every step of the manufacturing process and distribution system. Businesses will respond to reduced labour costs and increased energy costs by hiring more people and adopting resource- and energy-efficient technology. Ontario has lost 150,000 manufacturing jobs and 32,800 forestry jobs in recent years. These losses could have been reduced had the Ontario government started removing taxes from jobs and businesses, and increasing taxes on resource use. "Green" tax shifting would help Ontario businesses compete with low labour-cost countries like China and India. We have unnecessarily priced ourselves out of the marketplace. To recover lost jobs, to create additional jobs and to reduce pollution-related health-care costs, this province should immediately begin to unburden the productive economy (manufacturing) by reducing income and business taxes, and make up the lost revenue by collecting some of the unearned income that accrues to finite resources, like fossil fuels (royalties) and land (economic rent). This tax modernization would give businesses an incentive to increase profits by going green and employing more people, a truly win-win scenario. Frank de Jong, Leader, Green Party of Ontario, Toronto |
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