and, how will a carbon tax affect me directly?

the truth is that i'm very conscious of this, and have a very low footprint. i don't buy gas in any way. my one sin is that i buy a lot of imported fruit, but my argument is that it isn't really a choice i'm making, it's a choice made by distributors - largely driven by the price of labour. i live in one of the largest tomato-producing regions in the world, but the grocery store stocks tomatoes from mexico, because it saves money by doing it - and i need to go through the distributors, whether i like it or not.

if a carbon tax increases the price of mexican tomatoes, that may make canadian tomatoes more competitive, which is both good for the environment and the economy.

but, it exposes another problem: is a carbon tax legal under the new nafta? was it legal under the old one? in their backwards attempt to stop this, the conservatives are going to focus on constitutional arguments that are largely invalid. the more pressing challenge may come in the form of arguing that it's essentially a tariff on imported goods, and it's damage on foreign investors consequently rules it invalid under wto or other "free trade" rules.

we went through this about ten years ago, when the province tried to set up a rebate system for locally built sustainable energy projects like wind farms, and it got shut down by some japanese investors through a wto challenge. i wouldn't be surprised to see the mexicans sue us over this, if it hurts their manufacturing and agriculture sectors.

the other thing i need to buy is electronics, but i try to buy them a little older or second hand, so i'm getting surplus stock or pre-used goods. i do the same thing with clothes - with the exception of certain things like socks, i insist on buying all clothes second-hand, to avoid paying into the clothing economy, which is largely driven by slave labour. i can't imagine a new economy, but i can try to avoid supporting the existing one. as i focus on surplus supply, this isn't likely to affect my costs on electronics very much.

so, in terms of concrete changes in my life, this is likely to affect me only in the sense of it increasing the price of produce. but, if that leads to the distributors shifting to more locally grown items, it's a long overdue change that i'm strongly in favour of.