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From the Georgia Straight
" Vancouver-Fairview NDP MLA Gregor Robertson won't reveal if he'll vote with NDP Leader Carole James in opposition to the B.C. Liberal carbon tax.
In a phone interview with the Georgia Straight from Victoria, Robertson, the one-term MLA and Vision Vancouver mayoral candidate, said he has not yet decided whether to support or reject B.C. Finance Minister Carole Taylor's Carbon Tax Act, Bill 37, which currently sits at first reading in the legislature.
“I will decide that based on the receptivity to amendments to make it more effective and fair,” Robertson said. “I totally support the principle of a carbon tax, but this one has lots of inadequacies, and I am hopeful we can address that with amendments and debate.”
Both Robertson's MLA Web site, www.gregorbc.ca/, and his mayoral campaign site, www.gregor08.ca/, stress his environmental leanings. However, neither site has much to say on the carbon tax, which James opposes. At the annual meeting of northern B.C. municipalities in Prince George on May 9, James said her party would vote against the legislation when it comes up for a vote.
In a phone interview with the Straight, James referred to Taylor's bill several times as “a gas tax”. She added that many environmental groups thought the carbon tax was a good “symbolic” first step; an argument James said she disagrees with.
“I think we need more than symbols to deal with climate change,” she said. “The public is much more likely to do its part if they see that everybody is doing their part. But to expect the public to begin to pay now, while you let the big polluters off the hook and increase subsidies to the oil-and-gas sector, is simply the wrong direction.”
Robertson said he has concerns about “how this bill has been constructed”, claiming it exempts commercial transport, B.C. fuel designated for export, and “interjurisdictional” travel.
“All the big emitters are exempted and they [B.C. Liberals] say we will get to that with cap and trade, but if we are serious about it, we would deal with the big emitters up-front with a carbon tax,” he said. "
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