Canada's Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions Goals? They're a joke. Only New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are on track to meet them

I received an email today, from the Auditor General of Manitoba, which summarizes activities it undertook for 2017 - 2018.  One of the reports was titled, "Perspectives on Climate Change Action in Canada". It's a lengthy report, but one thing stood out as I was glancing through the report on the bottom of page 4, top of page 5 ... it read:

Of the jurisdictions that had 2020 reduction target's, only 2 (New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) were on track to meet them with current actions, based on domestic emission reductions.  In addition, governments were using different baselines years for their targets or were setting different types of targets, such as overall emission reduction targets versus targets for specific sectors of the economy.

Furthermore, governments were using different approaches for reducing emissions and different sources for estimating annual emissions.  As a result, it is unclear how the federal, provincial, and territorial governments would measure, monitor, and report on the individual contributions to meeting Canada's national 2030 target.

Many governments did not have detailed implementation plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  For the most part, auditors found that governments' plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions consisted of high level goals, with little guidance on how to implement actions.  Details often missing from the plans included timelines, estimates of the reductions expected from individual action items, and information about funding.

The highlighted, and italicized, portions of the above were done by me.  As you look at them, I feel fairly confident you can see why.  If anyone wanted proof that Carbon Taxes being imposed by some provincial governments -- and dictated with an or else sledge hammer by the federal Trudeau government -- those highlighted portions alone are proof they are little more than a tax grab.

Reason enough for Saskatchewan's provincial government to fight action by the federal Liberals from the start, and for them to now be joined by the Ontario provincial government of Conservative Premier Doug Ford

Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment
and Climate Change in the Justin
Trudeau federal government

Speaking to the CBC last month Canada's Environment Minister Catherine McKenna called Ontario bailing out of carbon market "sad".  She went on to say, "It's lose-lose: on the environment, lose on the economy ... our (Liberal) government is all in on climate action."

What action?  Canada's Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions Goals?  They're a joke -- and it's borne out by the Manitoba Auditor Generals reports.

Which is at least in part why I believe the premiers of Saskatchewan (Scott Moe) and Ontario (Doug Ford), are similarly "All In" on the fight against Canada's Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna.

“We agreed today (July 19th) to join forces and use every single tool at our disposal to challenge the federal government’s authority to arbitrarily impose a carbon tax on the people of Ontario and Saskatchewan.

Carbon taxes make life unaffordable for families, and put thousands of jobs at risk. This type of taxation does nothing for the environment and hits people in the wallet in order to fund big government initiatives."

Is there to much crap going into our environment?  Of course there is; it would be pretty hard to argue that, which is why the need for a genuine and achievable climate strategy is a given.  Simply implementing a tax on carbon that only sucks money out of the pockets of consumers, to then be funneled into government general revenues, is NOT the way to see that happen.

Different targets ... different approaches ... and high level goals with no guidance on how they are to be implemented.  That's the "All In" approach of Justin Trudeau's federal Liberal government. 

It's an all in approach our John Horgan GreeNDP government should abandon, but they (like the previous bc LIBERALS) are too addicted to the money they receive from punitive taxes imposed on us. 

• Carbon Taxes are doing nothing for the environment of British Columbia ...
• Carbon taxes make the everyday necessities of life more and more un-affordable for families
• Carbon taxes put high paying jobs at risk in resource and industry communities where government regulations already are already in place to protect the environment.

As Kerri Simms, of the BC Taxpayers Federation, said this Spring, "The carbon tax is not an accounting exercise for B.C. families. It’s an expensive reality for any Canadian subjected to it.  If taking billions of dollars away from Canadians doesn’t reduce emissions, then, what is the point of this forced carbon tax?"

One can only hope that soon in BC we too will have a premier who will join with Doug Ford and Scott Moe in saying their goal is to, "create good jobs and drive economic growth across the country.”

Hopefully they'll be all-in on that ... and not all-in on finding more and more ways to tax.

In Kamloops, I'm Alan Forseth