Re: "Conservatives' climate plan would replace Liberal carbon tax with lower levy of their own," CBC, April 15, 2021.
I don't agree with the characterization of this scheme as being a "carbon tax" - it seems to be a different form of Carbon Fee & Dividend to me (and the Supreme Court tells me and others that Carbon Fee & Dividend is not a tax, so....)
Conservative Party leader Erin O'Toole (Facebook)
There is some small merit to this approach, once you look past the reduction in the carbon fee and the crony capitalism of working with big business and how this will punish local businesses (once again) in preference to multinationals like WalMart, etc. Arguably, requiring the dividend to be spent on low-carbon purchases only will create greater efficiency - so you get more carbon reduction bang for your buck.
But it's hard to overlook all of the rest.
Not to worry, though - his own Party is going to eat him alive over this. Caucus, candidates, Party members and supporters, along with Conservative media pundits will almost certainly characterize this as a "Carbon Tax" - and as a (yet another) betrayal of so-called "Conservative Values" by O'Toole. This platform plank won't see the light of day come election time (which is why the trial balloon is up now). It just won't survive the backlash.
My question is, can O'Toole survive as leader of his own Party?
No comments:
Post a Comment