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Airlines
Did you see this in the Conservative’s Green Plan?
Where is the creative thinking of the business class and their business-friendly Conservative regime in Ottawa? Why does a socialist radical have to figure everything out for them?
by Kevin Potvin
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Simple cost-free tax policies can be rewritten to effect major changes in how the private sector does business, to help the nation achieve substantial cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions.
For example, currently a business can completely deduct the cost of air travel for its executives from its tax bill. Business travel by executives comprises more than half of all air travel in Canada, and air travel is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. The government itself duplicates the effect by covering all travel expenses incurred by its bureaucrats and elected officials.
The government could instead disallow any writeoffs of business air travel expenses, and pour the extra tax revenue into incentives encouraging companies to invest in video conferencing technology.
The government itself can lead the way by providing video conferencing technology for MPs, beginning with those from the ridings most distant from Ottawa. Surely the savings to travel expense accounts will more than make up for the capital costs of installing the technology.
Of course, no amount of video conferencing can replace all face-to-face meetings, but surely a good many of those meetings in both government and business can be replaced without too much loss due to less “face-time”. Video conferencing worked for the vice-president of the most powerful nation on earth during one of its most deadly emergencies, when Dick Cheney virtually “attended” meetings of the White House cabinet from his undisclosed location in the aftermath of 9/11. Surely it can work for Mr Bumstead, CFO of company X in Vancouver, making a courtesy call with Mr Dweezle, CTO of company Y in Toronto.
Granted, this would spell a loss of business for already hurting airlines. (How many tears did the airlines shed for the ship and rail industries they put out of business?) But allowing more and more greenhouse gas emissions in an attempt to keep failing airlines in the sky is misguided and only delays the inevitable. Peak oil will make fuel so expensive, most people, businesses and the public, will be priced out of the market altogether soon enough. The only thing the tax shift policy outlined above achieves is a smoother and more prosperous transition to an inevitable future of more video conferences and less business air travel.
Businesses will find that whatever productivity is lost in not being able to sit their executives down in the same room with counterparts from around the continent will be more than made up for by not having jet-lagged executives wasting time in customs line-ups, pre-boarding security clearances, and taxis stuck in traffic on the way to and from the airports on both ends of a trip. From the point of view of the economy, that gain in executive productivity might make up for the macro-economic losses due to declining airlines.
Plus, just imagine the advantages of doing business with someone in Kamloops no differently than how you do business with someone in Shanghai. The company with the staff most adept at the techniques of video conferencing will excel; and once government starts doing it in a big way, along with a few large companies, the technology will advance to make it even easier, more effective, and cheaper.
Only an idiot would have argued for more tax breaks to help business horse travel remain competitive in 1920, when anyone could see the internal combustion car was faster and more effective, or to keep business ship travel competitive in 1950, when anyone could see airplanes were faster and more effective yet.
A nation that used tax policies to encourage cars over horses for their business class travelers in 1920, and planes over ships in 1950, would have been a very prosperous and efficient nation as a result. Only an idiot today would try to encourage more business air travel with tax breaks for the airlines. An efficient and smart nation, by contrast, would be one that uses subtle changes to tax policy to begin shifting the business class away from the use of airplanes, and into video conferencing.
But oh no, can’t have that, that might actually reduce consumption of energy!
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