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A gas pump at a filling station in Montreal.Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press

Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Try to keep letters to fewer than 150 words. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com

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I had to smile when I read Campbell Clark’s column, Carbon-Tax Arguments Boil Down To A Desire To Do Nothing (Oct. 25), outlining all the reasons put forward by politicians to fight the “carbon tax.”

When we retired, we drove our hybrid from Toronto to our new home in Regina, a lovely, well-designed, well-run city with lovely people and a great football team. I couldn’t help but notice though that everyone seems to drive a pickup here. When I pull up to a gas station for our monthly fill-up, by the time I’m leaving, the same people who arrived when I did are still filling the enormous tank(s) on their enormous trucks.

These are not all working vehicles, they’re the family ride driven by mom or dad. If gas prices (augmented by a carbon tax) go up, regular people won’t be able to afford their hemi-powered pride and joy, and will have to settle for a less thirsty ride. Politicians understand this fear. Heck, politicians here also drive beloved behemoth “luxury” pickups.

It’s all about the shiny, huge, powerful trucks beloved by their owners. Think about it: Isn’t limiting excessive demand for fossil fuels the best way to start reducing carbon emissions?

Claudette Claereboudt, Regina

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The Liberals want to implement a carbon tax. To reduce opposition from provinces, the revenue would be returned to each province, in proportion to the amount paid by its citizens. Nothing guarantees each province will reduce other taxes to compensate. Even if a carbon tax is an essential incentive, it has drawbacks: As a “new” field of taxation, provinces can challenge the federal right to impose it; it allows Conservatives to say the Liberals are increasing the overall tax burden on Canadians.

Consider three facts: Reducing emissions is urgent; almost everywhere in Canada, in most sectors, citizens have successfully cut emissions, with one very major exception: transportation; for decades, a federal excise tax has been imposed on gas (10 cents/litre) and diesel (four cents/litre).

The PM should forget the carbon tax, aggressively increase the federal excise tax and reduce the GST for the same overall revenue. For example, a 30 cent/litre tax would increase federal revenue by about $14-billion (after considering a 25 per cent reduction in consumption). This would be a more efficient incentive than the carbon tax, as it puts the incentive on the main problem. It can be implemented simply, in a budget, without court challenges.

Such a fuel tax would allow the GST to be cut by 2 per cent ($14-billion in revenue). Cut the GST, and the Conservatives cannot credibly say this is an overall tax increase.

Since the key opponent to the carbon tax is Ontario’s Premier, the excise tax could have a new, popular name: the “Doug Ford gas tax.”

Luc Gagnon, Energy, transportation and climate change mitigation consultant; former expert reviewer, IPCC; Montreal

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The contention that provincial opponents of the federal carbon tax are advocating a “do-nothing” approach is, in my view, wrong.

Our Made-in-Manitoba Climate and Green Plan builds on the billions of dollars Manitoba taxpayers have invested in green hydro-electric projects. Regrettably, the federal government has refused to give us credit for these investments and the clean energy we already produce.

But the federal Liberals are giving credit to Newfoundland and Labrador’s government for its hydro-electric project by allowing it to have a lower carbon tax than Manitobans are being forced to pay. Quebec, which submitted a less stringent climate plan than ours, is getting a 40 percent lower carbon tax. We know climate change is real and intend to implement our plan this fall. We will do so despite the imposition of the federal carbon tax, which will damage our provincial economy and raise the cost of living.

Brian Pallister, Premier of Manitoba

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Many people have difficulty understanding how rebating the money that is collected through a federal carbon tax doesn’t cancel out the positive effects of the federal carbon pricing policy.

Consider an example. If walking on the south side of the road is taxed, chances are I’ll choose the north side. If you take the money collected from those who stick to the south side, and then rebate it equally to everybody, regardless of where they walk, I will get a bonus while the south-side walkers will get only a portion of their expenses back. This sort of tax, a sin tax or a Pigovian tax, is meant to change behaviour.

If the south-side walkers continue to walk there, they will continue to pay more and get back less. The only way to avoid paying more than you receive is to use strategies to avoid walking on the south side. Savvy investors and smart innovators will find new ways to help me avoid the south side; my choices for avoiding the tax will widen.

Extravagant spenders may carry on as in the past, but thrifty spenders will change their behaviour and support the new strategies. Meanwhile, far fewer people will walk on the south side of the road. Obviously, I’m talking about buying carbon-intensive products and services and not where I walk.

Bravo to the government for this smart program.

Cathy Lacroix, Toronto

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Discussions in these pages in recent days around the dollar-and-cents of global warming and carbon taxes, not to mention Donald Trump’s mercantilist instincts and gunboat diplomacy, brought to mind the following exchange between Ebenezer Scrooge and the ghost of Jacob Marley, his late partner, who came dragging his chains on Christmas Eve to warn Scrooge of his fate, should he fail to change:

‘But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faltered Scrooge …

‘Business!’ cried the ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business: charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!’

I suppose it’s the shorter days that brought this to mind. Scrooge managed to change his ways, at his personal eleventh hour. It’s hard to be optimistic that mankind, Jacob Marley’s real business, will find a way to change its. But we all, all of us, must try.

The carbon tax is just a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of our obligation to the common welfare.

Nelson Smith, Toronto

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Conservatives across this country have a plan for climate change. It works like this. They announce they are working on a plan. They will be making an announcement “next week” or “next month” or maybe “next year.”

Meanwhile, they use every rhetorical technique available to slander any plan put forward by anyone else, including one endorsed by a Nobel laureate.

Their own plan will be much better, totally painless … just wait for it. Their real plan is to sow confusion and discontent with those who really do have a plan.

They put their own short-term political gain ahead of the long-term health of our environment.

I cannot express how utterly disgusted I am.

Andrew Hodgson, Ottawa

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How many tonnes of CO2 are being removed from Canadian air space by our forests and other long-term storage mechanisms, versus how much is being emitted yearly into the atmosphere?

The carbon tax has no credibility unless the balance indicates the net on emissions.

Rodney Savidge, Fredericton

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