Collaborative Proposal Creation
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Proposal text
The Green Party of Canada believes that all people have equal rights to nature.
To deliver these rights, a Green government will shift away from conventional taxation. Instead, it will enact resource pricing (like carbon pricing) that minimizes - and compensates the public for - pollution, resource extraction, and land use.
Type of Proposal
Public policy that the party would represent
Objective / Benefit
Conventional land law has created a vicious cycle of worsening inequality as landowners collect rent which they don't create, which empowers them to buy even more land, thus concentrating ever more land in ever fewer hands. This could be fixed by capturing rent and redistributing it to society.
Furthermore, most existing taxes - like income, business, and sales taxes - inhibit beneficial economic activity.
After replacing those taxes with taxes on land, natural resources, and pollution, more wealth will be produced using less land, fewer natural resources, and less pollution.
It all starts with declaring that Earth is humanity's common wealth.
If your proposal replaces an existing policy or policies, which one does it replace?
The first four paragraphs of G10-P002 Green Tax Reform. To replace the fifth paragraph of G10-P002, see Financial Incentives for Ecological Restoration: Financial Incentives for Ecological Restoration
List any supporting evidence for your proposal
🔰Common Wealth Canada, an organization which advocates for these policies: https://www.commonwealth.ca/ (External link)
🔰Projected benefits of this tax shift in the EU, including increased employment and reduced carbon emissions - https://ex-tax.com/taxshift/ (External link)
🔰"How Low Taxes Lead To High Home Prices In Vancouver, BC: And how taxing land value can cool speculation and unlock affordability" - https://www.sightline.org/2022/05/09/how-low-taxes-lead-to-high-home-prices-in-vancouver-bc/ (External link)
🔰Other Green and environmentalist organizations' existing endorsements of similar ideas - https://commonground-usa.net/14320-2/ (External link)
🔰"Post-Corona balanced budget fiscal stimulus: The case for shifting taxes onto land" - https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/post-corona-balanced-budget-fiscal-stimulus-case-shift
Henry George Foundation of Canada https://earthsharing.ca/page/about-us
Does this proposal affect any particular group and what efforts have been made to consult with the group or groups?
N/A
Jurisdiction: Is this proposal under federal jurisdiction?
Yes
Please indicate the language the proposal is being submitted in.
English
This proposal is being evaluated
Posted on the Continuous Motion Development Vote tab for member review prior to the all-member vote.
Amendments (1)
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Created at
04/07/2024 -
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This goes back to ideas such as taxing the land rather than the property on it, which allows densification in urban areas but might have negative impacts on green spaces elsewhere. The clarification by Andrew Rose helps me somewhat. Again, from the narrow viewpoint of a property owner, "occupation and use" map easily to a land tax. It's when we get to "degradation" that this gets interesting and challenging. In the GPO we've seen proposals on subsidizing farmers to increase soil organic carbon levels - so those who degrade soils by reducing organic carbons might be subject to a degradation tax. What would the degradation tax for tar sands "settling ponds" or mine tailings piles look like? Lots of worthwhile stuff to explore here.
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