Dear Editor,
RE: Oppression Tax, April 19. Mr. Dunnill is barking up the wrong tree. He should be complaining the $3.6 billion Canadians pay yearly in subsidies to the oil and gas industries, plus the $36 billion we pay yearly for the health care costs of breathing smog from burning fossil fuels, plus the $1.2 billion we pay yearly for damage from extreme weather events, plus the $80 billion we lose yearly from pine beetle destruction of Canadian forests. Most people, when they buy a tank of gas, are not aware of also paying all the other costs of burning that fuel. The point of a carbon tax is to make people aware of the true cost of burning fossil fuels.
Mr. Dunnill is completely wrong about Canadian forests absorbing more carbon than we emit. Here are the facts. Over the past four decades, Canadian forests have absorbed about a quarter of the carbon emitted by burning fossil fuels. However, recently, due to forest fires and pine beetle infestation, Canadian forests have had a net emission of carbon into the atmosphere. In 2015, Canadian managed forests had a net emission of 221 mega tons of CO2 equivalent.
Ron Moore
Hillsburgh
Ron Moore