Dion has a plan

The current leader of the Liberal Party announced his plan today to take more of your money to bring in tough caps on greenhouse emissions by 2008. I particularly liked this quote:

In the past, Canada has been a leader in the fight against climate change, Dion said but has lost that standing under the current Conservative government.

"It is time for us to be a leader again," Dion said.

I suppose that Mr. Dion (and apparently CTV news) has forgotten the 13 years in which the Liberals were in power and did absolutely nothing except to sign & ratify the Kyoto Accord - no plan and no actions to reduce greenhouse gases - before their much deserved defeat in January, 2006. That was also a time when Citizen Dion was our do-nothing Minister of the Environment!

Anyway here's Dion's latest "plan" (with emphasis added):

Under Dion's plan, companies that fail to cut their emissions would pay $20 for every ton of carbon emissions over their target. The fines, which would rise to $30 by 2011, would go into a special account to finance green projects.

The companies that went beyond their targets would be able to sell the extra credits they earn to other firms, a proposal that Dion called a "carbon budget." (...)

Other features of the plan announced on Friday:

• Companies would be able to buy international credits through the Kyoto Protocol to offset up to 25 per cent of their excess emissions;

• The account that holds the fines paid by companies that exceed their targets would be managed by an independent agency;

• Companies could freely access the funds in the GIA to invest in green projects and initiatives at a rate of $10 per ton every year that would contribute to tangible reductions in GHG emissions;

• Firms could get money from the account to invest in green projects;

• Any funds that are not allocated to a project within two years of their deposit would be administered by an independent operating agency to be invested in other green projects and initiatives;

• At least 80 per cent of the funds would be invested in the province where the facility of the depositing firm is located.

OK. Let me get this straight. The Liberals want to set up a slush fund special account, which they would fund by fining companies and use the money to dole out to their friends to finance "green" projects.

Astronomical new levels of taxation (the fines) and a huge bureaucracy (independent agency) to administer the slush fund referred to as the GIA above. Don't know what that stands for, but it sure sounds a lot like Gaia, the "Earth God". And, must we ask, just who sets the targets which will determine which [Liberal friendly] companies will be able to exceed them and therefore be able to sell their lucrative credits?

Oh, and of course no Liberal plan would be complete without taking care of the need to transfer vast amounts of Canada's wealth offshore through the scam known as Kyoto!

It's a plan all right. But are we ready to trust the Liberals with something like this?

If you must, you can watch Citizen Dion introduce his "plan" in his own words [video link]. Or watch the Q&A from reporters [video link].

Update: Conservatives criticize Dion's plan.

“The Liberal environmental scheme is to introduce one of the largest corporate taxes in recent history, with no realistic expectation of achieving any real reductions in greenhouse gas emissions,” said Mike Van Soelen, a spokesman for environment minister John Baird, who is currently taking part in international climate change discussions in Germany.

“The Liberals' proposal of an uncapped Investment Account is nothing but a carbon tax. They have tried to disguise their carbon tax in hidden language, but if it looks like a tax and smells like a tax, it's a tax,” said Mr. Van Soelen.