Dion Announces Green Shift Changes

(The Canadian Press)

Adjustments to carbon tax proposal would include up to $1 billion in aid for truckers and other groups.

Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion has fined-tuned his party’s main election plank, which he says will “reconcile the economy with the environment.”

Speaking to his caucus on Wednesday, Mr. Dion said a Liberal government would set aside hundreds of millions of dollars to help groups likely to be hard hit by his proposed new fossil fuel taxes.

The sweeteners include $400-million in emission-reduction credits for farmers and forestry workers under the proposed Green Shift and a $250-million “green farms fund” to support environmentally friendly research aimed at cutting fuel consumption and greenhouse-gas emissions.

Another $250-million fund would help fishermen and truckers go green.

Countering dire economic warnings from the Conservatives and concerns within his own ranks, Mr. Dion called his plan a “progressive, ambitious and generous project for a richer, fairer, greener Canada.”

“Canadians need a government that will be guided by science and fact, not narrow-minded ideology,” Mr. Dion said in what was likely his last major speech before a general election call.

“Canadians want to do the right thing for their wallet and for the environment.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is expected to ask the Governor-General to dissolve Parliament and call a general election by week’s end.

Mr. Harper’s Conservatives have been targeting Mr. Dion’s green plan in television and radio ads, saying it will kill jobs and drive up the cost of living.

In Windsor, Ont., Mr. Harper said shortly before Mr. Dion spoke that changing the tax structure is folly in the face of economic hard times.

“I think it’s a crazy time for the country to take risks,” the Prime Minister said.

“I think when at the middle of a slowdown an opposition leader is proposing new taxes and tells the Canadian people after several months that he’s still changing it on the back of envelopes after meetings, I think people’s alarm bells should be up.”

Mr. Dion has argued the Tory plan to regulate emissions will also increase costs to consumers, but without the offsetting tax cuts to help people adjust — a plan he’s referred to as “all the pain, no gain.”

Mr. Dion said a typical family of four earning $40,000 a year would save $1,900 in taxes in the fourth year of his Green Shift. Read the complete article.