Time to be quiet !

Entry for July 14, 2008
Some times in political parties we need a ankle breaker. This is the time! Mr. Dion Can you please a chat with this member. Explain to him there is a time to talk to media and their is time to Shut up. Talking to news-talk radio in Saskatchewan is a Set up.. So make sure you have your facts and also your message, down pat. And not all press is good press.. As song 'The Gambler says" there is a time to hold them there is a time to walk away... Look at this article and judge for yourself if I am right.
Backbench Grit says Green Shift will raid Alberta
Jason Fekete, Calgary Herald
Published: Friday, July 11, 2008
CALGARY — An Ontario Liberal MP said Friday his party's Green Shift carbon tax proposal will raid Alberta's energy riches and transfer wealth "from rich to poor, from the oil patch to the rest of the country."

Ken Boshcoff, Liberal MP for Thunder Bay-Rainy River, rekindled memories Friday of the controversial National Energy Program when he stated on a blog post that the Grits' Green Shift program will inflict financial pain on Alberta and its oil and gas industry.


Canadian MP Ken Boshcoff's comments rekindled memories Friday of the controversial National Energy Program.
The carbon tax proposal - which is being sold to Canadians as an environmental initiative, first and foremost - would slap a levy on greenhouse-gas emissions in Canada, and return the roughly $15 billion in annual revenues through a series of cuts to income and corporate tax.
Failing to say much about any environmental benefits of the plan, Boshcoff proudly proclaimed on a political news blog that the Green Shift is the "most aggressive anti-poverty program in 40 years," which will target wealthy provinces — particularly Alberta.



"The shift will transfer wealth from rich to poor, from the oilpatch to the rest of the country, and from the coffers of big business to the pockets of low-income Canadians," he said in a post on NetNewsledger.com.

The MP explains in his post that the $15 billion in revenues will be used to pay for Liberal party social policies, including $9 billion in tax cuts for low-income earners and $2.9 billion for a universal child tax benefit.

In an interview Friday, Boshcoff said he should have been more responsible with his words, but never viewed the Green Shift carbon tax as having a negative impact on any part of the country.

"I really had not seen that it could be construed in a negative way," he told the Calgary Herald.

"Clearly, I feel it would be an expansion of prosperity nationwide. Everybody wants to share in Alberta's good fortune," he added. "As the (economic) tide rises, all ships should sail higher."

But policy analysts, as well as federal and provincial Tory politicians from Alberta, have skewered the program as a wealth transfer that has little to do with the environment.

Calgary Southeast MP Jason Kenney, the federal Conservative pit bull on the Green Shift, said Boshcoff's comments reinforce what the government has argued for weeks - the carbon tax plan amounts to divisive politics trying to pit Alberta against other parts of Canada.

"It reveals the real plan here, which is a massive new tax in order to finance increased social spending," Kenney said. "When you scratch below the surface, what you see here is a discredited, old, beggar-thy-neighbour, class-warfare politics."

Boshcoff's assessment of the Green Shift comes less than a week after another Ontario Liberal MP, Garth Turner, compared Albertans to "greedy, macho, selfish and balkanizing separatist losers in Quebec."

Kenney said the two verbal outbursts aren't accidental, and it's clear the Liberals - who don't hold a seat in Alberta - are deliberately attacking the province in an effort to gain votes in seat-rich Ontario and Quebec.

The latest round of Tory ammunition fell just days after Liberal Leader Stephane Dion toured Calgary and Edmonton in an effort to pitch his carbon tax proposal.

Dion went out of his way to sell the policy as fiscally smart, environmentally responsible and an attractive proposal for many in Alberta. The plan is nothing like the Trudeau government's NEP of the 1980s, he insisted, a program that crippled the Alberta economy at a time when oil prices crashed.

But policy experts aren't so sure.

Roger Gibbins, president of the Canada West Foundation, a Calgary-based think-tank, said it's disappointing the Liberals would disguise their carbon tax as an environmental initiative if it's really intended to redress economic imbalances in Canada.

"You don't want to use energy or environmental policy as a vehicle to redistribute wealth," Gibbins said Friday. "Don't pretend you're doing it in the name of the environment. That's not the issue."

The Green Shift proposes tax cuts to offset higher prices of heating oil, natural gas, coal-fired electricity, diesel and aviation fuels. Gasoline at the pumps would be exempted, but the Liberals estimate home-heating bills would go up an average of about $250 a year.

But there's growing concern in the oilpatch that Dion's plan would inflict disproportionate damage on Alberta's carbon-based economy, which accounts for one third of all greenhouse gases in Canada
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