Recurring guest Nathan Arfin comes on to have a blunt conversation about Bonnie Crombie's anti-carbon tax pledge, Doug Ford's housing fail, and the state of the Ontario left
The objective is not just to come into power and form government, but the objective is also to keep said power. Sure, you can in principle advocate for an ambitious emission-reductions program that does not include a carbon tax, but any such alternative policies will be more economically costly to implement or else will not achieve as steep reductions. So in that case, a Liberal government would just be creating problems for itself if the economy is not as strong as it could be or if the progress on emissions seems weak. The carbon tax has the political problem of its upfront cost being visible and transparent to the public. But that does not mean that the alternatives are going to be much easier to defend, because the Conservatives are still going to find ways to calculate the costs and accuse the government of manufacturing costs for consumers, and you cannot credibly deny that cap-and-trade, subsidy, or regulatory programs will also affect consumers. And independent analyses by think tanks or by the Parliamentary Budget Officer are not going to be more favourable than they are with the current programs. My disappointment with the OLP Leader is not so much that she announced that she will not consider a carbon tax policy, but when she chose to announce her rejection. It was only a short while ago that she announced an openness to considering carbon taxes, and it seems that a membership consultation process is only months away, so why did she not wait for the latter before deciding? She would not have lost any votes by waiting for a few more months.
The objective is not just to come into power and form government, but the objective is also to keep said power. Sure, you can in principle advocate for an ambitious emission-reductions program that does not include a carbon tax, but any such alternative policies will be more economically costly to implement or else will not achieve as steep reductions. So in that case, a Liberal government would just be creating problems for itself if the economy is not as strong as it could be or if the progress on emissions seems weak.
The carbon tax has the political problem of its upfront cost being visible and transparent to the public. But that does not mean that the alternatives are going to be much easier to defend, because the Conservatives are still going to find ways to calculate the costs and accuse the government of manufacturing costs for consumers, and you cannot credibly deny that cap-and-trade, subsidy, or regulatory programs will also affect consumers. And independent analyses by think tanks or by the Parliamentary Budget Officer are not going to be more favourable than they are with the current programs.
My disappointment with the OLP Leader is not so much that she announced that she will not consider a carbon tax policy, but when she chose to announce her rejection. It was only a short while ago that she announced an openness to considering carbon taxes, and it seems that a membership consultation process is only months away, so why did she not wait for the latter before deciding? She would not have lost any votes by waiting for a few more months.