Eco-savior environmentalism

Stop the Subsidies - We’re Broke!

By Guest Column Roland Seguin (Bio and Archives)  Thursday, April 12, 2012 | Print friendly | Subscribe | Email Us

Why does our BC provincial Govt. not understand elementary arithmetic that we cannot tax and spend our way out of debt?
Our Liberal leaders got our province in unprecedented debt of $53 billion and climbing, costing us $2.5 billion in interest each year yet they keep spending tax-debt dollars that we have to borrow, like there is no tomorrow.

According to BC Govt. news, the Electric car, (hybrids etc.) rebate program has $17 million to give away, $5,000 off the sticker price of each new vehicle. In addition, a $500 rebate gift is available to install a charging station at home.
Another $6.28 million for ‘Community Charging Infrastructure Fund’ for 570 public charging stations and upgrades around the province.
Plus $261,000 giveaway to City of Vancouver towards 67 charging stations.  Plus more millions for the ‘Scrap-it’ program, another subsidy for you to purchase a newer vehicle.

Do you think maybe the ‘New Car Dealerships of BC’ benefit from this? They contributed $ 795,264 to the Liberals since 2005 so maybe they expected something in return beyond the 7% HST tax they lobbied for and got on privately sold vehicles to eliminate that competition.

BC purchases about 15-20% of our electricity needs that we import from Alberta and the USA, so why are we subsidizing and promoting electric vehicles at this time?
One public works engineer said that if 10% of the people on any typical neighborhood residential street plugged in to charge their vehicles, it would cause a power failure.
It’s big government interfering in social engineering, and it’s all being done under the guise of eco-savior environmentalism, just like the carbon-tax scam is.

The market is the best judge whether gas, diesel, electric, hybrid cars are used, not the government trying to pick winners and losers based on ideology with no regard for our tax-dollars. Without the subsidy, electric vehicles would not be selling on their own merits as they don’t yet make sense in cold Canadian winters. In the last cold spell about a month ago, many of them in Washington State had battery failure and people were stranded in the snow storm. Sales there have since tanked.

So we all pay higher electricity rates with our brand new SmartMeters and the struggling lower income families are subsidizing the (demographically) more affluent electric vehicle purchasers.
They just keep piling on the taxes, fees and debt burden without culling the waste. It’s long time we got rid of the redundant Air-Care Program but the greenies in the Liberal Party want it all their way.
We desperately need some leadership!

Roland Seguin,
Langley