Petition for a referendum on carbon fee-and-dividend for Canada

My special interest in climate change began several years ago when the child of a family member cried himself to sleep after watching a television documentary on the subject. Will you sign my petition to help fight climate change in Canada?

Climate change is a difficult problem but does not appear impossible to solve. Climate scientist James Hansen has for several years proposed carbon fee-and-dividend as an essential part of the solution.

Carbon fee-and-dividend would start with a fee on fossil fuels similar to a carbon tax. Unlike a carbon tax, however, it would not go into government revenues but would be distributed as equal and repeating dividends to every adult.

British Columbia has a carbon tax that presently stands at $30 per tonne of carbon dioxide. A carbon fee-and-dividend system set at the same level as British Columbia's carbon tax of $30 per tonne would generate about $20 billion per year, enough to give every adult in Canada a fossil fuel dividend close to $1,000 per year.

Here in Canada, new taxes are often first approved through referendum. In Switzerland, citizens have the right to bring forward important questions to a nationwide referendum through a petition with 100,000 signatures; an equivalent number in Canada would be 400,000 signatures.

Please sign my petition to ask the leaders of the six parties represented in the Canadian Parliament to hold a nationwide referendum on the question of whether Canada should have a national carbon fee-and-dividend system, with the fossil fuel fee to be set at $30 per tonne of carbon dioxide and with the proceeds to be distributed in equal shares to all adults living in Canada.