I am sure you will all be pleased and interested to know that I have added another pastime to my morning ritual. In addition to retrieving two newspapers from whatever overgrown foliage is the delivery person’s preferred target of the day, I have also taken great amusement in the drama unfolding over a fence in my neighborhood. The hand gestures and verbal barrages taking place between the two neighbors over the fence (that is now standing over six feet high or about a billion centimeters, and runs the entire back to front length of the properties, right to the street), is quite hilarious.

Now, as I understand it, fences are to keep things out – visual things I guess. I mean, BBQ smoke still goes over it, lawnmower sounds still get through it, but I guess seeing your neighbor is intolerable.

Having recently caught up on the street news, I turned my attention to the national/international news according to the Toronto Star (my beloved wife’s favorite newspaper), that claims to have the highest circulation in Canada.

I am meandering to a point, so no sleeping here! Bear with me.

If you ask me, the Toronto Star invented the “L” in both “left wing” and “Liberal,” and to its credit does little to hide the fact. Until I caught them red handed.

As you may have gathered from previous reports, I suffer terminal carpal cramps when attempting to write about taxes. That is until I got to a miniscule article in the Toronto Star buried on page seven right next to a gluten-free asparagus recipe. The article was titled, “Price on Carbon Emissions Coming.” All of 65 words, including the ifs and buts – and there were a lot of those.

Now apparently the Feds under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, henceforth to be known as the Trufeds (rhymes with Triffids), will be introducing a national price on carbon emissions in the fall. Then it gets even more amusing as the article goes on to say that, “The provinces are working to reach a deal on whether to set a mandatory cross Canada carbon price.”

Who’s driving this tour bus and where is it going? The empires of B.C. and Quebec already have in place their carbon taxes. Financially-strapped Alberta and financially-inept Ontario are running to catch up to the bandwagon to feed off the horn of plenty carbon cash grab. Now the Trufeds are going to pile on yet another tax.

So let’s see how this may math out in a simplified price structure.

We will have the diesel or gasoline Rack Price + Federal Excise Tax + Provincial Road Tax + Provincial Carbon Tax + Federal Carbon Tax. Then you tax all these taxes in the form of GST/HST!!!

This is verging on insanity. You know why? Because it will do nothing to reduce Greenhouse Gases, but it will put Canada out of business. Because no one else, especially the U.S., has a carbon price plan.

This country accounts for 1.59% of global GHG. So let’s reduce this to 1.00% and go out of business at the same time. What a great idea!

Not only are the provinces and Trufeds in this country not on the same page as far as a carbon pricing control mechanism is concerned, but the rest of the world hasn’t even picked up the book yet or know where to buy it.

Setting a carbon tax fence in this country does nothing to stop GHG emissions from wafting over it from the rest of the world. A true global agreement!

Pass the brush so I can paint over this whitewash.