A woman fuels up at a gas station in Mississauga on Feb. 13.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
Any other name
Re “The country is on fire. Pierre Poilievre doesn’t seem to care” (May 24) and “The carbon tax is dead man walking. Any last words?” (Report on Business, May 24): Yes, the country is on fire: Physically in part, and metaphorically without doubt. And, yes, the carbon tax is in political peril. Why is it, then, that the straight line that connects global warming to the tax seems invisible to so many Canadians?
Governments should seriously up their game in explaining to Canadians that their carbon taxes are rebated. All media should consistently preface “carbon tax” with the description “revenue-neutral.”
But that alone stops short. Governments should offer a winning message. Let me pitch one: “Burning less carbon puts cash in your pocket.”
Former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell made that clear in 2008, when he brought in a revenue-neutral carbon tax and said: “You choose, you save.” It remains a simple, conservative message. It’s also powerful.
Governments should hammer it home.
Thomas Pedersen, Author, The Carbon Tax Question: Clarifying Canada’s Most Consequential Policy Debate Victoria
The headline might also read: “The tax is not dead, it’s not even a tax.”
In addition to the estimated annualized $1.2-billion gas subsidy that Ontario taxpayers now pay out to drivers, in future we would also pay higher insurance premiums and municipal and provincial taxes due to the rising impact of climate change on infrastructure costs, regardless of whether Canada puts a price on carbon.
“Axe the tax” sounds like politics minus an imagination.
David Roddick Toronto
Up and down
Re “A Liberal position on housing that defies gravity” (Editorial, May 30): Basic supply and demand rules the price of housing. Unless the supply increases, governments would continue to play whack-a-mole with failing programs and policies, with no hope of sustaining lower housing costs.
Even in a market with falling rent and housing prices, where would vacating sellers go to live? Furthermore, in a cycle of falling prices, latent demand would push prices right back up. And unless we reduce immigration, the demand side of housing cannot go down.
The only reliable way to make housing more accessible would be to talk less and produce more dwellings.
Laurie Kochen Toronto
Capital treatment
Re “Piecemeal tax changes won’t do. To get out of Canada’s productivity rut, we need radical reform” (Opinion, May 25): There is continual discussion around the capital-gains exemption for one’s principal residence. It is almost always discussed as a major revenue loss for government and a gift to homeowners.
If exemptions were lifted, there would be the issue of treating property as a capital asset in accounting terms. That is, if gains on a sale are to be taxed, then the costs to acquire and enhance the asset should be considered and raise the adjusted cost base, the major cost likely being interest paid on a mortgage over all those years.
I suspect that the cited $6.5-billion annually would be much lower. Not to mention it would likely be another implementation nightmare for the Canada Revenue Agency.
Still want to go there?
John Madill Oshawa, Ont.
Get free
Re “Free trade with our friends, absolutely. With our enemies? Not so much” (May 29): Dare I say the weakness of the free market has been laid bare by China.
Hopefully, Western democracies will realize that bullish government subsidies and support allows for meaningful participation in the global marketplace; tax dollars will pay dividends. We should keep this in mind when we criticize our governments for $5-billion in subsidies to Honda to build an electric-vehicle battery plant in Canada.
An important precedent is being set. More would be welcome.
Robert Milan Victoria
Legal prompt
Re “Will the rise of AI spell the end of intellectual property rights?” (May 27): I have no doubt that artificial intelligence will have to confront the “first challenge,” that of copyright and patent infringement. As to the “second challenge” over intellectual property, that may be made easier by establishing human creatorship for AI.
“Corporations” (really just a “concept” of words and numbers) have been legally recognized as “persons” for well over a century and are thus able to enter contracts, sue and be sued and be held liable under both civil and criminal law. If AI mechanisms (an electronic data “concept”) were deemed “persons” under law, would that not solve many problems?
It would allow an AI creator to defend itself and its “creations” against copyright and patent suits, as well as make it legally responsible and liable for infringement of same.
W. E. Hildreth Prince Edward County, Ont.
DIY
Re “Ottawa should play fair on child-care fees” (Editorial, May 24): When my cohort had children in the mid-1970s, we wouldn’t have dreamt of expecting someone else to pay for, or subsidize, our child care. Thus began a dizzying concoction of live-in nannies, neighbours, daycare, after-four programs and grandparents.
Although this took a large chunk of my paycheque, I was determined to keep my job. I’m happy to say that each child has turned out fine; none is in jail and each pays taxes.
Daycare doesn’t have to be perfect. There are a myriad of options out there, families just have to find one that works for them.
Nancy Marley-Clarke Cochrane, Alta
My space
Re “Critically endangered orcas in B.C. are struggling to navigate in a sea of shipping noise” (May 27): One of the captions might be better written: “Large container ship seen in waters occupied by orcas.”
Stephen Rowat Ottawa
To be, or not to be
Re “To The Globe’s letter writers and their editors, every delivery is a special one” (May 21): My late father Kurt Loeb wrote a Letter to the Editor every day; there was always something in The Globe that required a response on his part, to be shared with the editor.
In 1999, he published a collection of the letters you published in a book entitled The Globe and Loeb: An epistolary relationship… Letters to the Editor 1959-1999. As friends remark, when calling my attention to one of these letters that seems eerily prescient in light of current issues, history repeats itself.
Dad’s advice to letter-writers who wish to see their comments in print was to include a quotation by Shakespeare. He also quoted other literary and historical figures, and often wrote his letters in the form of a poem.
Honey Thomas Mississauga
Letters to the Editor should be exclusive to The Globe and Mail. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. Keep letters to 150 words or fewer. Letters may be edited for length and clarity. To submit a letter by e-mail, click here: letters@globeandmail.com