Where are our farm groups?

[furrowtickler]

Your fight tweety , that's what irks me as well

[Oliver88]

and that's the whole fundamental problem, no one knows what the money will be used for. Nobody!

Try and find it, i dare ya.

Sask here has green fund legislation from 09, but it isn't proclaimed.

We could get all the money back, who knows. Again, nobody. That's the real crime here. Come up with a plan, then implement the tax people can get behind. This is stupid from that standpoint.

The issue is, what will the carbon tax of $50/tonne actually achieve?
What measurable impact will be made other than taxpayers having lighter wallets and lower numbers on their chequing account?

BC has a carbon tax already, their GHG emissions are increasing after implementing the carbon tax.
Australia has deemed their carbon tax a failure and have cancelled it.
Ontario is experiencing increases in their power generation costs after "going green". (Maybe Burnt can fill us in?)

There is no need to pay tax, hire a bureaucracy (which other taxes subsidize) to collect and distribute the same amount of money back to the "favoured" groups if there is no net benefit. This just leads to hiring more government employees who we will have to pay a salary, pension and benefits to.

[Wheatking]

Perhaps this has been done, but I would like to see what our actual carbon emissions are based on actual farming practices, are we carbon neutral, or are we sequestering carbon with zero till. Until we get some basic numbers, how are they to determine what they are going to tax. I say if we are sequestering carbon we should be being paid for it, say $50/tonne.

[grassfarmer]

We could get all the money back, who knows. Again, nobody. That's the real crime here. Come up with a plan, then implement the tax people can get behind. This is stupid from that standpoint.

This is your chance to get involved - Governments are struggling to come up with how to implement a carbon tax. The farm groups chuckchuck mentioned have adopted a position on the carbon tax, if you agree with them get behind them. If you don't get behind some group that holds your views. We all have a voice in a democracy - use it where it will be heard by people in positions of influence. Seems like some of you will have to decide what your views are though - claiming climate change isn't happening and there is no need to do anything and simultaneously arguing that you want to be getting paid for your CO2 sequestration isn't going to fly.

[tweety]

My chance to get involved, no. Its not my job to be the government, its the people we have elected. Like everything in both provincial and federal, your involvement is merely a rubber stamp on what they were going to do anyway.

Except in this case, what they plan on doing isn't even being said.

[grassfarmer]

It's your job to make your views and opinions known to the people we have elected - whether that be a farm organisation, provincial or federal officials. Democracy doesn't just happen on election day, its an ongoing process that we have to work at.
.....Or as you said we can just keep whining like a school girl.

[burnt]

The issue is, what will the carbon tax of $50/tonne actually achieve.................
Ontario is experiencing increases in their power generation costs after "going green". (Maybe Burnt can fill us in?)............. .

Clipped to save space cuz it seemed like the green thing to do, LOL! Your entire post was excellent.

Kinda tough to find info about generation costs, but they have jumped sharply as a result of the switch to "renewables".

The new Natural gas generating plants are super clean and expensive, making them look expensive compared to renewables.

HOWEVER, when we factor in that a big part of these costs are a result of needing extra, baseload capacity to offset the unreliability of renewables, then it balances out and makes the renewables look very costly and basically useless since they contribute such a small percentage of our demand.

In fact, to try to justify renewables takes such a huge leap that those who promote it must either be benefiting financially, or be so abjectly stupid. Useful idiots, Stalin called them.

Here's the litmus test - if anyone think renewables are such a great idea, are they using them as their sole electricity source? If not, why not?

If answer includes "cost", then I ask why they would expect me to pay for something that they say is unaffordable for themselves?

The chart linked below gives the staggering figures about Ontario's electricity rates:


[URL="http://www.ontario-hydro.com/historical-rpp-rates"]http://www.ontario-hydro.com/historical-rpp-rates[/URL]

The rise in costs has far outdistanced the projections from just 3 years ago - the 1st news link below from 2013 tells us to expect a 42% increase in our bills, but the 2nd link, from 2016, tells us that the increase was actually 72%.

[URL="http://www.torontosun.com/2013/12/02/ontario-hydro-rates-to-rise-42-in-5-years"]http://www.torontosun.com/2013/12/02/ontario-hydro-rates-to-rise-42-in-5-years[/URL]

[URL="http://www.torontosun.com/2016/02/29/ontario-electricity-rates-fastest-rising-in-north-america"]http://www.torontosun.com/2016/02/29/ontario-electricity-rates-fastest-rising-in-north-america[/URL]

Finally, this:

[URL="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BC1l4geSTP8"]https://www.youtube.com/embed/BC1l4geSTP8[/URL]

[malleefarmer]

Carbon tax dead in water. Electricity were second most expensive in world we have huge deposits of uranium which with modern safe methods can make cheapest but no govt here will touch it my belief Canada has a lot of uranium and same issue

[blackpowder]

It is obvious we are doomed to repeat.

[Oliver88]

Thanks for the information Burnt.
Australia at least learned a lesson and did axe the tax while Ontario is after more financial pain and misery.

It's crazy that the initial goal of the Green's in Australia was to have a reduction of carbon molecules from 1:5,700,000 to 1:6,000,000.

The billions in a tax recycling scheme to accomplish......nothing but more government bureaucrats.

[Braveheart]

Burnt, isn't part of the problem with ON hydro rates the incorrect proportioning between rural and urban? Without some subsidization from urban, rural rates have skyrocketed leaving many rural residents struggling with their accounts, correct or no?

[Braveheart]

So, if you are a group that calls yourself a farm group and you don't oppose a carbon tax, should you continue to all yourself a farm group? A carbon tax will hurt agriculture, no doubt. All the he exemptions in the world won't make up for the economic chaos about to be unleashed.

We transport everything. Transportation costs will rise. We burn fuel to produce our products, and we're already running engines that have never worked as well as pre tier whatever/EGR bs. We heat barns for some livestock classes, power milking machines and feed mills. While there may be rebates or exemptions for these operations, the administration for said exemptions will only add more cost to a by now crippled economy.

Re financing a shift to renewables, how far in the future is N fixing wheat? Renewable plant nutrition used to be manure, green or otherwise. The problem is, it takes a lot of energy to plow down green manure, or spread the other kind. Renewable talk is Suzuki speak for screw over the corporate world.

I could go on but the point is if you're a farm group, stick up for farmers. Is there climate change, shifting poles, or a Castro in Ottawa? Maybe yes to all, maybe no to all and it doesn't matter in the context of defending farmers against a tax burden whose implications we can't begin to quantify.

Where are the farm groups? The answer my friend, is blowin in the wind . . . tower. Unless you truly are a farm group.