Oil Subsidies Undermine Tax

By CHRIS GENOVALI

Victoria Times Colonist: Letters to the Editor
Published: Thursday, February 21, 2008

While the Liberals try to foster a transition to a low-carbon economy via the new carbon-pricing initiative, their budget announcement simultaneously includes a 24 per cent increase in oil and gas subsidies, in addition to further funding and promotion of coastal oil and gas drilling.

In light of their born-again climate-change conversion, how can the Campbell government justify the continued push to open up B.C.’s fragile coastal environment to oil and gas drilling?

The amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from burning the crude oil and natural gas drilled from B.C.’s coast would be the equivalent of putting 13 million cars on the road for 20 years (the life of the
offshore project). Greenhouse-gas emissions from the production of oil and gas are growing faster than any other source in the province.

The type of logic being applied to the province’s climate change policy is akin to penalizing addicts with a drug tax while encouraging drug dealers to continue to ply their trade by giving them government grants. Apparently the Liberals haven’t made the connection between their ardent support for coastal oil and gas development and their putative climate action plan.

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