But What About Rick Mercer?

The Liberal government tried to challenge Canadians to reduce emissions by one tonne, and how well did it work? Not at all! This is why Harper's government decided to scrap this waste of taxpayers dollars! This program was doomed from the start. They challenged us to reduce emissions by one tonne, but almost no one knew how to even do this! Not that we don't know how to cut back, but how much is a tonne? I read a whole pamphlet on the One Tonne challenge and I still didn't know what I had to do. Sure, they said ways to reduce, but I didn't know how many I had to implement to achieve this goal. Although for me, I am not sure how possible it would be to reduce by one tonne (although I don't know how many total tonnes I use, maybe one tonne isn't too much?), I do not own a car, my house doesn't have air conditioning, I have the energy saving light bulbs in my room, and I don't even take public transit (walking is better than busses)! Reducing your emissions by one tonne is just too abstract of a goal for most Canadians.

As well, even if you knew how to reduce your emissions by one tonne, there was no incentives for participation. There were no new tax breaks for conservation (at least that I heard about), no reward for reaching the goal, not anything! Having Rick Mercer telling us to do something isn't exactly the motivation that Canadians need.

Canceling this useless program does not show that Harper doesn't care about the environment, it shows he values the Canadian tax payers! This, from the start, was a do nothing program just to make Canadians feel good about ourselves. If I want to pay money to feel good, I will go to a strip club, my tax dollars should not be going towards making me feel warm inside. I know everyone hates to think that the United States are better environmentally than we are, but they are. As I was reading the article on the One Tonne Challenge being scrapped, I saw a commercial on CNN from an appliance company (not the government) telling people to switch to more environmentally friendly air conditioners because you will get a tax break and save in energy costs in the long run. Now that would make me think about reducing my usage if I was a home owner!