When a British Monarch dies, there is a chant arising from the populace which goes something like "The King is dead. Long live the King."
It doesn't seem to make sense since the king is dead, so how could the king possibly live long? Of course, the second portion of the phrase is a wish for a long and prosperous reign for the incoming king or queen.
With that in mind, may King Trump reign long and well in the land to the south.
Enough said about the American election.
On to the more important issue - we have a provincial election coming up.
We have about 175 days to make up our minds regarding who will lead this province for the next four years. Not anywhere near the 1,400-plus days until the Americans head to the polls to elect a new president. And our official election period has yet to start.
There are some key issues which we will be facing as voters in the coming months. Many of the key issues in this election will likely be around the environment which neither party can really do anything about.
Climate change, as even the anti-global warmers understand, is happening.
The science says it is a result of uncontrolled emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
The anti-global warming side says either carbon dioxide emissions has nothing to do with global temperatures because the concentrations are too small and it is a natural cycle of the sun/moon/earth or it is a result of carbon dioxide emissions but doing anything would ruin our economy and, by definition, our civilization.
Unfortunately, media is no longer bound by a code of ethics. Social media allows anyone to express their opinions forcefully. There is a profound sense of entitlement held by some believing all points of view are both equally valid and should be equally heard.
Often these sorts of discussions devolve into one side claiming their opinions are more valid than the others.
What is often missing from the debate are the facts.
With regard to the provincial election and the environment, front-and-centre should be a discussion of the carbon tax. In my opinion, it is a massive boondoggle. It is intended to be "revenue-neutral" but so is the entire government. They collect money from a collection of sources to spend on a collection of priorities.
Governments should only be collecting as much as they need to pay for the things we collectively require. At no point should a government be accumulating money. The same should be true with regard to overspending or deficit financing.
Hence, government by definition should be revenue neutral. Money goes in, money comes out.
The issue for me, with regard to the carbon tax, is we are being taxed on our consumption of fossil fuels and the money is being given back to corporations and the disadvantaged to offset their carbon costs. The money isn't being used to address environmental issues.
There is no causal connection between collecting money to address our carbon footprint and spending money to decrease our carbon footprint. Maybe it would be justifiable if the tax was being used to establish alternative energy infrastructure or converting the government fleet to electric vehicles or retro-fitting every building in the province to LEED standards.
But the money is going to support tax cuts. Think about that - we are being taxed to support a tax cut.
In any case, the government has a number of years of data and will likely argue their carbon tax approach is reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the province.
They are correct in saying we are producing fewer greenhouse gases but how well that is connected to the carbon tax is debatable.
It is more likely due to the shift in our economy over the past 10 years from heavy industry to the service sector.
Fewer trucks and more computers.
The opposition is likely going to take the stand that the government hasn't done enough with the carbon tax. It should be higher. It should be more comprehensive. We need to do more for the environment.
So, when I say the carbon tax will likely be an issue in the upcoming election, it won't be about whether or not we have a carbon tax. It will be how high it should be and how should we be spending the money.
Both parties are already lining themselves up to be the "environmentally friendly" party. The B.C. Liberals are already running television advertisements, through the auspices of the government, telling us how B.C. is a leader in "clean energy" because of LNG.
The environment will be an issue but we will be left picking between two parties trying to outdo one another. Or, as the Americans recently faced, deciding between the lesser of two evils.
