Cashing in on global warming hysteria

Quebec implements carbon tax as big business calls for more government intervention

October 3, 2007

In a highly synchronistic fashion, the government of Quebec levied North America's first carbon tax this week, just as the Canadian Council of Chief Executives released a new report expounding the values of government intervention of all sorts in the name of reducing dreaded carbon emissions, including emissions trading and environmental taxation.

The Quebec government hopes to raise C$200 million with their carbon tax, which, according to the government, will be used to fund programs with the aim of cutting back on carbon dioxide emissions. However, as the National Center for Policy Analysis notes in their report on the tax, it's unlikely that the tax will have an effect on the climate, but it will undoubtedly trickle down through the economy, hurting businesses and consumers alike. Moreover, as Alex Jones has already pointed out, the carbon tax scheme is a mechanism for funding a North American Union, an idea which comes from the secretive Security and Prosperity Partnership's own meeting minutes from their 2006 Banff forum as reported on by WorldNetDaily.

The Canadian Council of Chief Executives' report, meanwhile, proposes all sorts of repressive government intervention in the marketplace as pointed out by the Financial Post, a somewhat odd position for a coalition of big business free marketeers to take. The report is not so unusual, however, if its' recommendation to establish a carbon credit market is viewed as a chance for Canadian big business to get in on what has become a US$30 billion a year industry. Government-promoted hysteria over junk science might be good for business after all. Furthermore, as The Corbett Report has previously reported, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives are the braintrust behind the Security and Prosperity Partnership.

Environmentalists who still can't understand how the hysteria over carbon emissions is being used as an excuse to implement an unpopular political idea might be advised to research the Security and Prosperity Partnership before beginning their celebrations over this week's news.