NFU joins carbon tax fight

[RD414]

They entered the court case, but on Turdos side and against, what, 97% of Saskatchewan farmers and the rest of our provincial economic engine. And grassy wonders why farmers don’t support them. Back stabbing bastards.

[Oliver88]

Backstabbing cowards.

[SASKFARMER3]

What a total bunch of Fools and Grass you wonder why no right-minded Canadian Farmer will support those F#$King NDP loving Fools.

[mustardman]

Preston Manning is Also Urging Conservatives to Agree with With Carbon Pricing

Debate How it is Implemented But not the idea of Carbon pricing since it’s based on Market forces

[Oliver88]

What a total bunch of Fools and Grass you wonder why no right-minded Canadian Farmer will support those F#$King NDP loving Fools.

They were just on the verge of gaining credibility they haven’t had in decades by taking a stand against the seed tax but I guess they are siding with the rooftop gardeners and environmental wackos when it comes to the industry killing carbon tax. 🙈

[grassfarmer]

They entered the court case, but on Turdos side and against, what, 97% of Saskatchewan farmers......

That's a good question - how many? what %? has anyone ever asked?

You've got to be smarter on the representation thing though - 1 issue you don't agree with from the NFU, 1 you don't agree with from WCWGA so you never support any group on anything - then sit and complain that no-one represents you. A smarter approach may be to work on issues that concern you with whatever organization aligns on that issue - forget the ideology of being faithful to one organization (or political party) over multiple decades it's what's taking away farmer's voices.

[chuckChuck]

Michael Chong who ran for the Leadership of the Conservative Party and is a sitting Conservative MP supports a carbon tax as do many business leaders including several representing the oil industry. Also Preston Manning.

There is support in the conservative movement because a carbon tax is a market based approach that lets consumers and industry decide how best to reduce emissions instead of governments telling them what to do.

Even if it is rebated to consumers it still works because it is in your interest to reduce energy use that lowers how much carbon tax you pay and you still get a rebate.

[Oliver88]

It sounds as though grassfarmer and chucky are members of the NFU and support their position.

Trolling Agriville with their very small minority view on the carbon tax and CO2 alarmism than trying to promote their farm organization doesn’t seem like a good venture.

[wmoebis]

Is there any producer group that is against both royalties and Carbon Tax? Guess you would have to be kinda misdle of road and we all know that isn't possible.

[blackpowder]

There is general support for carbon pricing etc. within all political camps. For one reason.....

[westernvicki]

Canada is a resource based exporting nation, when our main competitors buy in, and pay a carbon tax, in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, (and the smaller FSU nations gaining momentum). Australia, Brazil, Argentina and USA, and the table is level let us buy in, but not a tonne before.

Besides that Western Canadian farmers engage the sustainable practice for decades with reduced tillage, we use equipment which now comes with pollution controls, practice integrated production technology to grow the most units per acre, while sequestering carbon, how will a carbon tax encourage us to do better.

If we drive a gas burner car, we can buy a hybrid. We can move to a smaller home, we can buy less consumables as individuals to reduce our footprint. But what can we do in Ag to reduce our carbon footprint, pray tell? If there is a model, other than stopping planting, we should know: perennial wheat not invented. And, grazing will not work because that is beef and indeed the greens would say this is bad, beef is bad but alas dairy (high intensive dairy farms) are well worth defending. It seems necessary to ask, what is the road map, to green that a carbon tax will bring.

Surely the wise folk can tell us: Chuck Chuck? Anyone? Give me the map.

I like solutions, in ag we all seek them everyday, all the time but alas this is confusing, in today's competitive global market, the last thing we need is more tax, we have done our part and if we had a nation with a view of the future, then ag would have a full exemption not just fuel, and if a carbon tax, why are we not insisting on offsetting carbon tax credits?

Farm income dropped this year, & next year the carbon tax will take another bite. Its a risky business, made even riskier by made in Canada by a policy of increased taxation.

[westernvicki]

BTW who is the NDP?

Even Rachel must be asking.

[Oliver88]

Now the climate alarmist minister is using NFU quotes to promote their carbon tax.
Bunch of NDP backstabbers......

[Daylate]

NFU... never heard of it.

[chuckChuck]

Why are Canada’s oil patch CEOs changing their minds on carbon pricing?
Chris Turner
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published December 4, 2018
Updated 3 hours ago

If you’re used to hearing greenhouse gas pricing programs described as a “job-killing carbon tax," then it might surprise you to discover that the Business Council of Canada, whose members provide almost two million Canadians with jobs, was unqualified in its support for the federal government’s carbon price backstop when it was unveiled in October. “For many years,” the council announced in a press release, “we have advocated for carbon pricing as the most efficient means to contribute to achieving Canada’s climate change goals.”

Like many supporters of carbon pricing, the Business Council doesn't pick a favourite between the two most common approaches in Canada—a straight carbon tax like British Columbia's, which levies a flat rate by the tonne to all carbon dioxide emissions; or a cap-and-trade system like the one Quebec has joined. The Business Council simply accepts the argument made by many energy economists that putting a price on carbon is the most efficient first step in reducing emissions.

This enthusiastic support for carbon pricing—and action on climate change in general—echoes that of the business sector most often targeted by environmentalists as the country's greatest climate villain: the oil sands industry. Indeed, the Business Council's endorsement was a bit tepid by comparison.

Perhaps in part because they have been targets in the climate change debate for so long, oil sands executives have become some of the most vehement business voices in favour of emissions-reducing mechanisms such as carbon pricing. CEOs from several major oil sands producers crowded the podium in Edmonton back in 2015 when Alberta Premier Rachel Notley rolled out her carbon-pricing climate plan. At the biannual Globe conference in Vancouver—among the biggest events on the calendar for Canada's growing cleantech sector—oil sands execs are as common a sight as electric cars on the trade show floor; this year's instalment of the conference featured Shell Canada country chair Michael Crothers on the marquee opening panel, discussing clean energy policy alongside green power advocates and climate scientists.

Suncor CEO Steve Williams, meanwhile, has emerged as one of the most ardent critics of climate-policy foot-dragging you’ll find anywhere. “It is a matter of profound disappointment to me,” Williams told a Calgary crowd recently, “that science and economics have taken on some strange political ownership—why the science of the left wing is different than the science of the right wing.” You could be forgiven for thinking he was directing his ire at opponents of his industry, but his actual target was the political right and its refusal to give a fair hearing to economists arguing that carbon pricing represents the most efficient way to take action. It was, in essence, an established oil sands CEO dressing down his most vocal boosters—telling them it’s time to get with the program on climate change.

This is where a decade at the roiling centre of the global debate about climate change has brought Canada’s oil sands industry. It might be tempting to dismiss it all as a cynical airbrushing of the industry’s corporate image while the oil patch continues to reap profits from pushing Canada’s emissions steadily higher—and certainly there’s some of that going on. (Oil sands emissions are up from 8% to 9% of Canada’s total since 2009, although emissions per barrel are down by more than 20%.) But there’s a deeper lesson here—one that the oil sands learned the hard way, by spending more than a decade as an international symbol of environmental destruction. And it’s a lesson that every executive boardroom in Canada would do well to heed.

That lesson is that climate change is not another environmental issue alongside the rest. It is an emerging catastrophe affecting every aspect of human society—which by extension will have consequences for nearly every business in any sector. Climate change won’t be contained, and it’s no longer enough to delegate it to the corporate social responsibility department or give it passing lip service in a sustainability report. It’s a C-suite issue, a bottom-line question. Those businesses it hasn’t hit yet should count themselves lucky—there’s still a chance to get out ahead of the issue before they wind up, as the oil sands has, the subject of damning headlines.

This is a lesson that extends far beyond public image. Oil sands companies have embraced the need to act on climate change not because it might make them look better, but because the risk of not acting has proven to be so great—a fact made clear to the industry almost daily since the name “Keystone XL” first hit the international political radar. Oil sands companies know they have no viable future unless they can find a way to be welcome and profitable in a low-carbon economy.

The other critical lesson oil sands companies have learned is that there is opportunity in taking action. For many, this has meant obsessive efficiency improvements. By consuming less fossil fuel in the digging and processing of bitumen, they have cut costs and boosted profits, even as they’ve shrunk the carbon footprint of each barrel of oil. It’s mainly a question of competitiveness, but also an opportunity to develop pollution-reducing technologies that may one day be of enormous value in the marketplace. For the business world beyond the oil sands, the opportunities are even greater. Building the infrastructure of a low-carbon world is already a multitrillion-dollar project, and it is growing bigger all the time. The rest of this century belongs to the companies—and economies—that corner this market.

It still might be possible to mint political capital by fear-mongering about the cost of taking climate change action, but there’s less financial capital to be made every day. The smart money’s in embracing it—just ask an oil sands executive.