You gotta be kidding, right?

I sent a variation of the letter that I sent to the South Peace News last week to the MLAs.

And, exactly one MLA wrote back thanking me for my interest and giving me a site to visit for a list of the big ideas they had for green energy.
I could feel the pat on my head.

First of all, they seem to be abandoning the idea of returning the carbon tax funds to us. Those of us below a certain level of income, that is, at the princely sum of $100 two or three times a year – kind of a long-range plan when one of the local reporters stated the carbon tax could come to be 20 per cent of our bill.

They made no mention of the fact I brought up about what part of the bill they were basing their charges on, the actual energy used or the total bill. There can be a vast difference. The service charges are not energy, they are service charges and make the most of my electricity bill.

It could explain why some people in Ontario have been hit with outrageous bills [$800]. We have no control over when some guys in a backroom decide we are going to have to cough up for them. The amount of energy we use we can moderate to some extent, but not the rest of the bill and we should not be taxed on it.

The problem with so many of these big plans is they do not protect us from the predatory practices of large companies. What we need is an opportunity to get out of the grip of these entities. Going off grid would largely eliminate energy bills.

A wise household would set aside money for repairs. But it would be an end to scalping us with these service charges and the demands to pay money we don’t owe yet or they will cut our power off and charge us $200 to reconnect us.

We need a paradigm shift. Going on with business as usual isn’t going to help. Not business like that.

It would be a huge undertaking, not just going down to the local Canadian Tire and getting a couple of solar panels. It will entail building factories, manufacturing the products and installing them on site. It will employ large numbers of people for probably 15-20 years. The tax revenue generated by them will help government do what government does, and help to level out the boom and bust cycles of the petroleum industry.

And, render us much more immune to either natural disaster or sabotage.

The technologies involved may be shockingly easy and economical to come by. Elon Musk of Tesla Power is open sourcing the patents for his panels, batteries, and even his factories, in an effort to wean the world off of fossil fuels. More and more companies are doing that.

What we need as a nation is a change of direction, something that is to be returned to us as an advantage for the taxpayer no just another hand in our pocket.
Eva Sartorius,
High Prairie