BOUTILIER: Canada needs a carbon tax revolt

Who is Sheila?

Well my friends, she’s an Alberta Rancher and she is taking a stand.

Sheila is frustrated with the Liberals federally and NDP provincially for completely failing to get the "social license" required to develop a pipeline, even though a Canadian carbon tax has been put in place.

As a result, she is refusing to pay the Albertan carbon tax.

In a strongly worded letter to the Superior Propane company, Sheila stated that she refuses to pay the $101.90 carbon tax on her bill.

To both Trudeau and Notley she further more states:

Protesting the Canadian Carbon Tax

She’s hoping this act of civil disobedience motivates others to act, and I while I don't believe or promote the act of civil disobedience, I do believe at a minimum it should cause everyone to pause and think.

Rachel Notley and Justin Trudeau promised us “social license” if we agreed to this new tax on everything, they promised us pipelines and even attempted with little success to convince us this carbon tax would be Alberta’s savior.

But both parties have come up short on everything they’ve promised.

After repeated failures to get any meaningful pipline built, it now seems both groups are still expecting hard working Albertans to pay more for the things we need such as home heating, food, and gas for our vehicles.

They do this while, Quebec's Premier the chief recipient of Albertan transfer payments labels our crude oil "dirty." Imagine that, the province receiving $13 billion out of 20, in order to run its massive welfare state describes the hand that feeds it as dirty.

Even our own federal government continues to ignore the carbon footprint left by carbon-tax exempt Saudi Arabia.

With such an intense gap in thought, it almost feels like we are living in alternative universes, and we sort of are.

Resource producing provinces are living wholly different lives than our cousins in Ontario, Québec, and B.C.

In those provinces, hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars are actively being marshaled into tech startups, while in Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba, only tiny fractions of that amount are entering many fields outside of natural resources.

How bad is the situation in real terms?

In the fourth quarter of 2017, Ontario took in 1.4 billion, Quebec $1.3 Billion, B.C $646 million, and Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan received a combined total of $66 million.

There is no understating how fundamentally different the economies of our nation are becoming, and how much of the technological shifts in Ontario, and Quebec are coming through burdensome transfers and taxes placed on resource producing provinces.

We take on this burden of providing more for Canada while often being unheard and ignored by the federal government.

This is perhaps why I feel so connected to the sentiments put forward by this rancher.

Sheila is refusing to pay the cursed carbon tax, and believes that as long as there’s no new pipeline moving Alberta oil, there should be no carbon tax, a sentiment I am totally on board with.

Maybe it’s time for a Carbon Tax revolt?

What do you think? Join the conversation by commenting below!