When you're out here on the front lines, fighting tax hikes and crazy public policy, it can get a bit lonely sometimes. Is anyone listening? Are we pushing the debate forward? These are the questions we all deal with from time to time.

And then you get a major newspaper like The Province deliver a smashing blow for the little guy--the cash-strapped taxpayer. And the fight starts anew! The Province's editorial today is precisely what we have been saying for years now:

Building on a reputation for believing that no issue, federal or provincial, can’t be better handled by his city government, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson has joined other Lower Mainland mayors in seeking a portion of the much-hated carbon tax.

Robertson claims the tax has reduced emissions for B.C. and Vancouver. But a report on the subject issued in June by the environment ministry says that while total B.C. carbon emissions fell 4.5 per cent between 2007 and 2010, with the tax coming into effect in mid-2008, emissions actually rose by nearly one per cent between 2009 and 2010. And even leading pro-tax, anti-carbon academics admit it’s not clear if the tax or the recession caused the slight 2007-2010 drop.

What we do know is that TransLink announced earlier this week that some of its financial woes is linked to motorists heading across the border to buy gas since, thanks to politicians like Robertson, the Lower Mainland has the most-taxed fuel in North America. To make the carbon tax “revenue neutral” Victoria cut our income taxes. B.C. can’t afford, and therefore must reject, the mayors’ carbon tax grab. Better yet, let’s kill the tax, a blight on struggling B.C. taxpayers.