Wednesday, December 23, 2009 2:29 PM
May challenges Harper on carbon tax
Jane Taber
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is in Venice today. Before that she and her teenage daughter, Victoria Cate, were in Vienna taking in a performance of the Nutcracker at the Opera House.
The leader and her daughter, who were in Copenhagen last week for the climate change summit, decided to remain in Europe for the holidays and will be in Florence for Christmas. That’s because Ms. May wanted to show her daughter (while they had the opportunity) the grand cities of the continent.
Of course, to reduce their carbon footprint, the two are traveling by train with Eurail passes. But Ms. May is never really far away from Canada and Canadian politics. Reading in this blog that the PMO was pushing back on newspaper reports that Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in his year-end interview with CTV, had not ruled out a carbon tax, Ms. May weighed in: “I am amazed by the fact Harper and Flaherty (Finance Minister Jim Flaherty) have said they plan to raise payroll taxes (CPP and EI contributions) to get out of deficit when they claim they will not raise taxes. Clearly, they have announced the plan to raise taxes,” she wrote.
The Harper Conservatives do not acknowledge that this constitutes a tax hike.
Ms. May writes that it would be better for our economy and Canadian business to apply a carbon tax "and use some of that money to further lower payroll taxes. (The rest can be used to lower income taxes).”
A carbon tax is highly controversial after former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion failed miserably with it as an issue during last year’s election campaign. Meanwhile, Ms. May has also posted on her website her final thoughts about the Denmark summit. She was not impressed with the frantic negotiations and the outcome that did not lead to a legally binding outcome and left much unclear. But she says to “take heart”, “be brave” and “fear not.”
“The global movement for climate justice has a long road ahead,” she says.