A truck convoy protesting the carbon tax is one of two that will leave Red Deer this month.
Encouraged by the grassroots support a pro-pipeline convoy to Ottawa received from Canadians, Glen Carritt of Innisfail said he’s planning to participate in two other convoys in April.
On Wednesday, he and at least a dozen other central Alberta truckers will be heading to Saskatchewan to join the Regina Rally Against the Carbon Tax. The local truckers plan to leave Gort’s car wash at 10 a.m.
The rally at Regina’s legislature will be held at 2 p.m. Thursday and Carritt expects about 400 trucks from across Saskatchewan to congregate in the province’s capital.
He said he will be driving a fire truck that sports more than 20,000 signatures from Canadians across the country who support the oil and gas industry — and not the carbon tax.
“It’s a tax that isn’t doing anything to reduce carbon emissions,” added Carritt.
The tax the government has imposed on the burning of carbon-based fuels (coal, oil and gas) is meant to serve as an incentive to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of fossil fuels, whose combustion is associated with climate change.
In Alberta, the revenues are to be reinvested into the economy, as well as used for small business tax relief and as carbon tax rebates for low- and mid-income households.
But Carritt believes the whole program is pointless, since Alberta already has a “very low carbon footprint.”
“Our environmental standards are the best in the world. We don’t need a tax on local families … that’s just (money that’s) going into government coffers and not doing anything to reduce emissions,” he added.
The federal Liberal government introduced its own carbon tax Monday in the four provinces that have refused to impose their own levy.
The second convoy will leave the city on April 12, bound for Calgary, then Edmonton and Grand Prairie. It will join a rally in Valleyview in support of the United Conservative Party before the provincial election.
As an Innisfail city councillor, Carritt is not supposed to take a political stand, so he said he will be in this convoy raising awareness of the need for the new government — whichever party is elected — to “champion oils and gas and all Canadian resources.”
More information on both convoys can be found on the United We Roll Facebook page.
lmichelin@reddeeradvocate.com
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