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今天的抗议集会上,一个农民述说了碳税将给她们带来的灾难。她讲的内容有具体的数据,由于其它国家比如美国澳大利亚并不遵循同样的减碳标准,所以她们将面临不公平的同行竞争。她讲演完后,我向她要了讲演稿的文本,转发如下。英语好的同志们给翻翻:1 @: ~% n4 Z; V& w5 B `
1 e2 f2 y6 C* D. RThis last year ag has been hit hard. We have had bill 6, excessive rain which has left hundreds of crops under the snow, the closure of western feedlots who blamed this governments bad policies in aiding in their decision to shut down operations and then Carbon tax.7 s3 D; d* ^/ t+ ]0 }& ]
When you look at the Climate Leadership Plan there is no real risk assessment for ag. In reality there is0 A3 Z, y+ f6 f) ?% a
not a lot of risk assessment at for anyone.. n$ C7 R0 _; @
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& m' u& V; L- X( K8 j9 U Now when you crunch the numbers at average this tax will have a 10% increase on operating costs on farmers. This is a increase that producers can not pass on. We don’t have the ability to tell the auction market that we will be selling our calf crop for $2800 per head, we don’t take our grains and oil seeds to elevators and say we will sell our wheat for $5.00 a bushel. It simply does not work like that for us we do not have that control. So we really have no ability to help pass the cost.
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7 J" Q+ G9 U2 Y _: zWhen you take the market fuel exemption it covers only a tiny portion of the increase this tax will have on producers, and when you look at it and analyze
4 a6 I: ~$ x9 b- K! z. c O* gall our expenses for heating, power trucking and the list goes on that exemption is in reality of no help. Industry has estimated that this tax will cost $10-$30 per acre, $7-$8 per head trucking. these numbers added together are huge. If you sell 100 calves its going to cost a extra $800 to take them to auction.# L$ C T9 D! J; b% ?8 B5 _
So the government gave a 10 million dollar increase to grants that aid farms in becoming energy efficient. Which is great but that’s 10 million in tax payer dollars that has no true benefit as we still have to fork out thousands of dollars to cover the rest of the cost, money that is now gone due to the increased tax.
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# f. [1 B+ y9 ?: C* C; ?The reality of this carbon tax means our operation costs will go up but our market competitiveness decreases since other countries can now produce our same products at a much lower cost. They don’t have to meet the same criteria and costs that we do here. That means that countries like the united states and Australia now have a huge advantage over us. I read a article that by Western Canadian wheat growers that brought a different perspective to this matter for me. Farmers and ranchers need fertilizer, it’s very energy intensive to produce even though we have some of the most advanced technologies, there for they will be forced to raise costs to cover expenses of this tax leaving producers wondering if they have the money to spend it on a much more expensive Canadian fertilizer or with the other option a imported fertilizer. When we work on such fine margins as it is and now our costs skyrocketing we have to make these hard choices that in the end could result in more closers. I often wonder how this tax is going to lower my emissions to start with. Cows still have to be fed, barns and shops still need to have power and heat, I cant simply stop doing these things. So how is taking my money going to reduce the emissions? The beef industry in Canada only accounts for 0.04% of global green house gas emissions so we clearly have to be doing something right with that, Canadian soil used for beef production is currently holding a estimated 1.5 billion tonnes of carbon. Crop sectors are also researching no till acres and finding they too are able to have soils retain the same numbers, so my question still remains How is paying thousands of dollars in a tax going to help reduce the emissions? How it this tax going to make it easier for Albertan families to continue eating Alberta grown ag products? From what I can see its not.6 i0 {1 p" f) v- K9 q
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9 k- `3 h |" R9 J$ DSara Wheale.
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