A few dozen protesters gathered today in the parking lot at the Nova Scotia Visitor Information Centre and along the TransCanada highway calling on the federal government to “axe” its carbon tax on fuels.
Traffic crossing the provincial borders sped by normally with many motorists — especially truckers — honking their horns in support.
On April 1st when the current series of protests began, the RCMP closed the highway for several hours after about 50 cars had pulled over on the shoulder.
‘Holding the line’
Carbon tax protester Kevin Hicks says he’s “holding the line for a better future.”
“We’re just here holding the line for a better future for the kids,” said 54-year-old Kevin Hicks as he stood beside the highway waving a Canadian flag.
“The taxes keep going on top of taxes upon taxes and we can hardly afford to live today,” he added.
The price of gas, groceries, it’s just rough times.”
Hicks has been taking part in the border rallies since they began two weeks ago.
“I’m 54 with five kids and three grandkids and they’re hardly making it today. It’s sad to see the homeless out there and the amount of starving people because nobody can afford to live. They’re pushing people to the streets.”
Hicks says he works on roofing and siding and lives in his 5th wheel trailer parked in his sister’s Amherst yard because he can’t afford his own apartment.
He scoffs at Prime Minister Trudeaus’ repeated assertion that eight out of 10 households receive more in the quarterly carbon tax rebate than they pay in added fuel costs.
It’s a point that Nicole Kitsko, who lives in Oxford, N.S., also scoffs at.
“Trudeau is full of shit,” she says.
Nicole Kitsko holds a protest sign with a blunt message
“The rebate is nothing compared to the cost of everything going up because of the carbon tax,” Kitsko says, adding that as a single mother, she no longer qualifies for the child tax benefit because her son is 19, yet he can’t get the GST rebate either.
“He’s been working full-time since he was 15 and just worked 100 hours in the blueberry industry and they took half his pay,” she says shaking her head.
“It’s the way we get taxed.”
When asked if she’s planning to vote for federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who promises to rescind the carbon tax if he becomes prime minister, Kitsko shakes her head again.
“I’m not sure I believe in our voting system anymore,” she says.
‘Globalist agendas’
Greg Campbell (L) and Darrell Hudson question the “globalist agenda” of the “one percenters” who make up the world’s elites
Over near the barbecue tent, Greg Campbell from Wolfville, N.S. and Darrell Hudson, who runs a haskap farm in Nova Scotia’s Musquodoboit Valley, are engaged in lively conversation.
The two, who met today for the first time, also question the effectiveness of Canada’s electoral system while they worry about the “globalist agendas” of the world’s elite classes who gather every year in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum to promote “sustainability” while supporting the United Nations and its World Health Organization.
“It’s all tied in, it’s all about making money through monopolies and glad-handing one another,” Campbell says.
“We need to stand up against that and say, ‘OK, a transition [to a greener economy], but we need to be all involved in consenting.'”
Campbell argues that the federal government is using the carbon tax as a ruse.
“They’re telling us the carbon tax is going to make a difference and they’re trying to pressure us — they come right out and say it — they’re trying to ‘incentivize’ us to buy electric vehicles and to stop using fossil fuels,” he says.
“Yeah, maybe that can be done, but the way they’re doing it is by punishing us.”
People are already going hungry, he says, others are losing their homes because they can’t make their mortgage payments and the carbon tax will make things worse.
Campbell also dismisses Pierre Poilievre’s carbon tax promise as a Trojan horse to get him elected as yet another, out-of-touch and unaccountable prime minister.
“Stephen Harper was as bad as Trudeau,” he says, “these politicians are living in ivory towers, we need to start taking back power for the people, we need to be attending municipal council meetings and educating people on how our systems have been compromised by the UN and like organizations and how we’re not really living in a democracy anymore.”
For his part, Darrell Hudson questions the purpose of the federal carbon tax rebate.
“They’re taking money from the poor with this carbon tax and they’re giving it to the people that are more poor and they’re making us all poor,” he says.
“The only people that I see that are getting more money back than they’re giving are people that are already on welfare and they don’t have a car and they’re being supported by the government, so that would be a sure vote for them,” he says.
“It’s all about votes and if they can make us reliant on them and expecting that $200 or $300 HST and carbon tax, all these rebates that they’re taking from us, then we’ll be on board with them because we’ll need them and from what I see, that is a communism tactic, I believe that we’re creeping into communism and I think that’s the end goal, to muzzle us all and have us under their control.”
Hudson says COVID lockdowns and vaccine mandates were also examples of coercive control.
“COVID kicked it all off and divided us like never before.”
‘Taxed on tax’
Kim Dickson stands beside her truck in the parking lot at the N.S. Visitors Info Centre
“We’re getting taxed beyond what we can handle as a society,” says Kim Dickson who works as a home support worker in New Brunswick.
“We’re being taxed on tax now, have you seen the receipts?” she adds.
“Our official mandate here today is to axe the carbon tax.”
Dickson laughs heartily when asked how she would respond to those who say we need the carbon tax to fight climate change.
“Whatever we do is not going to fix the problem we don’t have,” she says.
“One tree is enough to remove our carbon dioxide,” she adds.
“One tree can sustain me for 40 years and look at the trees all around us. Canada is three percent I think of the world’s carbon emissions, so we don’t even have any emissions problem.”
Dickson also maintains that climate change is a natural phenomenon and that the scientists warning us about it are trying to cause panic.
“What they do to us is control by fear,” she says.
“Make sure you watch your five o’clock news. That’s why I asked who you were with. If you were CBC or CTV, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Kim Dickson’s truck also warns against COVID mandates as a form of coercive control
These people cannot be taken seriously. They complain about a tax that will cost them on average $78 a year at the gas pump while spending money on flags (which they appear to have defaced) and placards and painting insanity on their trucks. They are conspiracy theory nuts from the looks of it. If you don’t understand climate change is real, there is no discussion to be had. The quotes in the article tell it all: communistic, covid denial, “globalist agenda”, anti-UN and anti-WHO comments. Conspiracy theory nuts.
I’ve driven by the border protest several times… including the Monday before last, when the RCMP closed the TCH for several hours. I appreciate Bruce’s coverage very much.
People with very similar views now comprise some 40% of the voting population in the U.S. I don’t claim to know how, but somehow, we all need to get out of our bubbles and (re-)learn the skills/arts of respectful listening and conversing with those with whom we disagree. If we cannot, I fear that it’s only a matter of time before Canada begins a decline similar to the one America is experiencing today.
That one fellow’s got a remarkably tall flagpole/ragestick.
These protestors would probably agree with the article published at Ontario Landowners written by Cheryl Gallant Conservative MP that I had previously forwarded to Bruce Wark .. worth a read.
https://ontariolandowners.ca/trudeau-adopts-chinese-communist-policy-the-plan-to-end-private-property-ownership-by-mp-cheryl-gallant/
Austerity measures are coming.. so buckle up buttercups.
Yeah, they would agree because they are crazy. Private ownership of land is not going to end in Canada. The goal is to prevent destroying biodiversity. That will likely put restrictions on what you can do with your land, but there are already restrictions on what you can do with your land. Look who the authour of that piece is, she’s just as loonie as the trained seals waving thier flags beside the TCH.
The ignorance, paranoia, and gullibility required to believe that the world’s richest people are in a communist conspiracy, or that one tree will permanently sequester a lifetime of carbon from a truck and every other carbon production from an individual, would make the future of democracy genuinely worrying if these people were more than a handful of idiots.
It would be nice to imagine that a respectful dialogue could win over such people to reality, but based on what? Can they believe that anyone who doesn’t agree with them acts in good faith? Would they believe any scientific research that contradicts them? Where does a dialogue begin with people who have no idea what science is, what democracy is, what communism is, or what the UN is, and whose idea of “holding the line for a better future for the kids” will result in those kids being poorer, with more disasters and wars, and probably having to take a ferry between NB and NS once the border is under the rising sea?
The answer is probably not arguing with them, but addressing the poisonous disinformation that shaped their fantasies, and the failure of schools to teach citizens to think rationally.