
Re: MP Lewis failed to mention carbon tax rebates, January 9, 2025
I commend letter writer Greg Crone for his concern for families. The Canada Carbon Rebate may well amount to $1,000 a year for a family of four. However, I wonder if Mr. Crone takes into account just how much carbon tax is paid to the government.
Unless you live within walking distance of everything, let’s assume a family with one car needs a tank of gasoline every week to drive to and from work. Right now, we pay about 18 cents of carbon tax per liter of gasoline, or about 6 dollars per fill-up, for more than $300 per year. This gasoline carbon tax is due to increase in April, unless the Liberals cancel it. Remember, we are not talking about a second car if both parents work, or even a third if they have a teenager. One car, used for work.
Let’s also assume their home is heated with natural gas. Looking at my own Enbridge bills, we paid $422.93 towards carbon taxes in 2024. And our house is kept cooler than most in the winter, with no A/C gas costs in the summer. So far, our example family with one driver going to work, is only gaining $275 on what is easily calculated. Then, we must consider what we DON’T know. Every time a truckload of food is delivered to the grocery store, there is a carbon tax for the trucker, estimated at 200 dollars per fill up. This is an added cost on everything we buy.
It is thanks to the Conservative MP for Huron-Bruce, Mr. Ben Lobb, that farmers no longer pay carbon tax on fuel necessary to heat their barns, or dry their grains, which previously added billions to the cost of food production itself. Private Member’s Bill C-234 was finally made into law, only last summer.
Last but not least, oil and gas usage is not going away anytime soon. I certainly do not foresee ditching my gas boiler.
My laptop, your cell phone, kids’ toys, any number of appliances, home siding, polyester clothing are ALL made from oil. Wastewater treatments alone are estimated to add 5% to the GHG emissions, without which we would all be buying plastic bottles of drinking water. I can drink what comes out of the tap.
We need oil and gas and should export what we do not need to those that do, adding billions to Canada’s GDP. Whether Trump is “placated” or not should be completely extraneous to the discussion. We should not cut off our noses to spite our face.
Riitta Louhimo,
Dunnville
Keep Haldimand County communities small, quiet, and friendly
Last Tuesday I attended the Haldimand Council In Committee meeting, always available to the public. I observed a presentation from a representative of Deloitte, a consulting firm hired to gauge resident satisfaction of Haldimand County. It was as the consultant suggested, ‘A good news story!’ for Haldimand County. He stated that it was rare to see such an overwhelmingly positive response from residents based on how things are presently. In fact, 96% of respondents rated their quality of life in Haldimand as good or excellent.
One particular graphic in the presentation caught my eye. It’s called a ‘word cloud.’ This is used by the consultants to create a visual, using words from this question posed to the participants of the survey; ‘Please use three words to describe what you like most about living in Haldimand County.’ The words that popped out at me were; small, rural, quiet community, country, and peaceful. These words pop out because they have the larges fonts. The font size of the word correlates with the amount of times these words were offered by those surveyed.
I looked long and hard to find; ‘Nanticoke, Development, MZO, Expansion.’ Too bad they hadn’t asked, ‘Write three words that come to mind when you think of things detrimental to Haldimand.” Hmmm. Again, 96% of people are happy with the way Haldimand is today.
Some areas that residents saw a need for improvement were: more access to green spaces, aquatics programs, more transportation options in and around the county, and affordable housing. I’d argue that affordable housing issue is a nation wide issue, but have to agree that more trails and opportunities to explore our county and rich heritage needs to be addressed.
I’d encourage you to review the entire report on the Haldimand County webpage pub-haldimandcounty.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=36372
Brad Adams,
Canfield