Mr. Speaker, I will say I support a carbon tax if it is 0% collected and 0% levied. Basically, no carbon tax is the only one I will accept.
We are an export-driven economy, and when I look at the markets that we compete against internationally, none of them are really moving full hog towards a carbon tax. We have President-elect Trump who has basically said he has no interest in keeping the COP21 targets. There will be no carbon tax there. He loves it, because there will be more manufacturing jobs in the United States and more energy jobs in the United States if we impose it on ourselves.
We know that GHG emissions, carbon emissions have gone up in British Columbia, despite there being a carbon tax. It does very little. We cannot simply raise the carbon tax in one area and not in another. That is called carbon displacement. We will have energy-intensive industries moving to other locations. We have talked about value upgrading, refining upgrading for energy products, but that is a very carbon-intensive industry sector.
I have heard that member asking before why we do not do more value upgrading, refining, but in truth it would actually increase carbon emissions, not decrease carbon emissions.
When I look at this, I ask, “What is in this for Albertans?” All I see is another tax and another way of taking their money away, instead of them using it for themselves.