Dear Editor:
An open letter to Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
I doubt very much whether this will influence you because of your government’s inability to communicate with us in the proletariat, but I really wish you would stop pretending that implementing a carbon tax will do anything to influence our environment and climate.
I realize that to seriously make changes there would have to be serious decisions made such as:
– supporting the building of emission-free modular nuclear reactors to produce electricity;
– supporting a hydrogen fuelled economy where the hydrogen for a mobile fuel is produced from nuclear electricity and not burning natural gas;
– funding electric charging stations for electric cars, throughout the provinces and not just in the major cities;
– removing HST from the purchase of electric vehicles; and
– minimizing non-essential jet travel for government employees and elected officials.
I know that addressing the above while trying to squeeze back into power would be impossible for any government and so I am not holding my breath that you will suddenly cry. Eureka! However, who knows, you might just get back into power and then you will have another four years to either squander your time on this file or try to make a real difference.
If you are prepared to work on the above, realists like me will work with you and perhaps make some real changes, but if you want to continue in the clouds with whatever alchemy appeals to the various Ottawa lobby groups, then just go ahead and leave us realists to figure out how to survive with a three degree sea temperature rise.
Michael Lee,
Salem