Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Saturday, January 05, 2013

Environment Canada survey asked Canadians about carbon tax, oil exports

OTTAWA—Months before the Conservatives began their sustained campaign attacking the New Democrats over their proposed cap-and-trade policy, Environment Canada wanted to know how Canadians felt about a federal carbon tax.

Many did not like the idea.

Environment Canada commissioned polling firm Ipsos Reid to conduct a nationwide telephone survey last June to learn how Canadians view federal priorities regarding the environment, in order to help improve the way the government communicates with the public.

The report was finalized last August and published on a government website for public opinion research within the last month.

One of the questions gauged perceptions of a carbon tax by asking respondents how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the following statement, on a scale from one to 10:

“Canada needs to implement a federal carbon tax to promote energy efficiency and protect the environment, even though it means increasing the cost of things like gas and groceries for consumers,” the statement read.

The results showed 43.5 per cent of respondents leaned toward the “strongly disagree” end of the spectrum, 19.1 per cent were on the “strongly agree” end and the rest fell somewhere in between.

The Conservatives devoted many question period moments, media scrums and news releases to the carbon tax issue during the fall parliamentary sitting, accusing the NDP of wanting to impose a “$21-billion carbon tax” that would kill jobs.

What the NDP had actually proposed during the 2011 election was a cap-and-trade system, which would involve the government setting a cap on greenhouse gas emissions and then allowing polluters that exceed the cap to buy credits from businesses below the limit.

The Conservatives included the same idea in their 2008 federal election campaign platform.

Environment Canada spokesman Mark Johnson provided an emailed statement in response to a query about why the department included a question about carbon tax in the survey.

“The Government of Canada is taking action on climate change through a sector-by-sector approach and by targeting financing where it can have the greatest impact. The Government of Canada is halfway towards its greenhouse gas reduction targets. The survey shows that most Canadians are opposed to a carbon tax,” said the statement sent Wednesday.

Another thing Environment Canada wanted to know was how Canadians felt about diversifying export markets for natural resources by asking: “How important do you think it is for the Canadian economy to open new global markets, such as Asia, for Canadian exports like oil and gas?”

The results showed 48.6 per cent of respondents leaned toward “very important” and 14.1 per cent skewed toward the “not at all important” end of the scale.

Johnson wrote in his statement that the survey “is one of many ways that the Government of Canada routinely listens to Canadians” as part of consulting citizens regarding its plans to expand exports of natural resources.

Environment Canada also wanted to know whether Canadians think the federal government “strikes the right balance between addressing environmental issues and economic priorities,” again on a scale of one to 10.

The results showed 27.4 per cent of respondents leaned toward strongly disagreeing with that statement and 17.9 per cent leaned toward strongly agreeing.

More generally, respondents were asked to name the issue they thought the federal government should focus on the most and were given the opportunity to provide whatever answer came to their minds, rather than picking from a list.

The top three issues that respondents mentioned first were the economy (17.1 per cent), health care (12.5 per cent) and the environment (8.7 per cent).

The nine-minute telephone survey of 2,010 Canadian adults was conducted between June 11 and 18 last year. The margin of error for the national numbers is 2.2 percentage points 19 times out of 20.

Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Joanna Smith

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