Green shift, what green shift? Live-blogging energy, environment, and economy at Canada at 150

1:52 PM: I’m running late, had to get some things done in the press room and then head over to the mall to pick up a few necessities. So I missed the bulk of the afternoon keynote from Sheila Watt-Cloutier, former Canadian President and International Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council.

I did catch a bit of her address though, and what I heard was very interesting. She was largely talking about energy and climate change, also adding her perspective as an Inuit leader.

A few bullets: the Conservatives are doing nothing on the environment, the Liberals talked a lot but did very little as well. No matter which party is in government, she said we need more than words on climate change. We need a strong, comprehensive, meaningful plan for action.

She also added she worked with Stephane Dion on these issues, particularly when he was environment minister, and she said his commitment to these issues is substantial.

2:07 PM: It’s a two-speaker panel on Geopolitics and Canadian Interests in the North American Energy Market. First speaker is Michael Phelps. No, not that Michael Phelps. It’s the former chairman and CEO of Westcoast Energy Inc.

One of the things he said that struck me was that there is no will or consensus for meaningful action on climate change in the United States. He’s never seen it more divisive, and doesn’t expect any real action from there soon. The message being, Canada can’t wait for the United States to get its act together before we take meaningful action – which has been Stephen Harper’s consistent excuse for inaction.

Also, he said fossil fuels aren’t going away (well, they are running out, but you know what he means) so we need to make them cleaner and more sustainable, but also find, develop, and support as many energy alternatives and other forms of energy as possible.

2:15 PM: We’ll never get to 0 carbon says Dan Gagnier, chairman of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, but we should get it as low as possible. He dreams about getting to 0, and I tries in my own life. But carbon is a fundamental element of the universe. But if we got to 80 per cent of our goal of 0, he said, he’d be ecstatic.

Phelps said you have to price carbon, and in his view the only way to do it effectively and meaningfully is through carbon taxation. And myself and the other five Dion loyalists in the room applaud, while the others look uncomfortable.

2:26 PM: Phelps says the only thing that will change consumer behaviour is price – in the context of gasoline prices, reducing consumption, and getting out/away from cars. Hard to disagree with that. If se saw gas regularly at over $2.00/litre, even the well-off would drive less.

Maybe we do need higher-priced gas? Eddie Goldenberg just breezed by, I should ask him how that would look on a campaign brochure…

2:32 PM: Questioner asks if you crazy panellists seriously want the Liberal Party to go our and campaign – again – on a carbon tax, because, seriously, were you around during the last election. OK, I editorialize, but that’s the gist.

Phelps gamely steps up and says he knows the politics of it. He’s looked at cap and trade but calls it opaque and open to gaming; carbon tax is still the right policy. BC did it and it’s working, but they don’t want to talk about it. He said “I’d be standing on a soap-box and saying you should use less carbon because you’re going to pay for it.” Still, he recognizes while it’s the right policy, politically it’s suicidal, “I’d rather do the Mackenzie Valley project that run on a carbon tax.,” he said, referring to the controversial pipeline project I believe he helped sheppard.

2:39 PM: Next questioner says he takes issue with the position that the last election was about a rejection of a carbon tax by the electorate (he didn’t mention if he believes it was Stephane’s English or something). We lost the last election on many things, he says. If it’s the right thing to do, we should do it, which gets strong applause, and not just from the Dionistas this time.

Gagnier says people need to understand the benefits, if they see it as tax they’ll run for the hills. There are carbon taxes in Europe and there it’s revenue neutral. If you cut back other taxes, like income taxes it can work, he says. Give people a choice and they’ll make the right one.

I have to say, here is an issue where the gap between academia/policy wonkery and real politick is illustrated starkly. What do you do when you know, from a scientific, from an academic, from a fact-based discussion, what the right thing to do is, when you also know it is near death to sell politically. Because if you can’t get elected, you can’t do sweet all.

I’m not sure a carbon tax is necessarily unsaleable. I think we just did a particularly shitty job if selling it, and had a number of strikes against us before we even started. So I think it is possible for politicians to make these tough sells.

Should we go back to a carbon shift platform again, though? Well, I was talking with a friend yesterday about the need for our party to find some balls, and that would be pretty dammed ballsy. I’m certainly not eager to dive back into that pool, though. I’d need to see a lot more consensus, and public buy-in, before I’d support campaigning on it.

As a Dion guy, while I can’t help but feel a degree or ironic vindication, I also can’t help but wonder, where the hell were all these people when we were campaigning on this, and getting savaged on BS distortions? Now industry is coming out in favour, joining the environmental groups. We could have used them in 2008.

I guess my feeling is if they want us to put a carbon tax on the agenda, they’re going to need to step up and buy into the idea first. They should start campaigning for it, soften the ground, then maybe we’ll be comfortable jumping in. But not before.

2:55 PM: Next energy panel is up now, but I was writing through the break so I’m going to grab a beverage, back shortly.

3:07 PM: Really delicious treats in the coffee break; as a BCer I rightly choose a Nanaimo bar.

We’re back with another panel, dubbed Clean Energy and Canada’s Potential in the Low Carbon World: What’s Missing? One of the panellists, I think it was Steven Guilbeault, Co-Founder of Équiterre, just said that one in four of people that voted Liberal in the last election did so on the Liberal environmental policy, much higher than the other parties. That’s an interesting stat.

3:23 PM: And we’re back to a carbon tax again. I wonder how this very interesting debate would be going if this Hyatt was in Calgary, not Montreal?

One panellist says even Exxon is in favour of a carbon tax now and if Exxon is in favour, he’s not sure who could possibly be still opposed – except, perhaps, Stephen Harper. Oh, I’m sure we could find a few others. Or Harper could...

3:29 PM: Another panellist makes an interesting point about thinking more broadly. In Spain, he says, they wanted to get cars out of the city centre so they put a heavy tax on bringing cars downtown, although they didn’t call it a carbon tax. They got the intended result – much less cars in the city centre – but there were also unintended consequences. Cars are a major household expense, and once that capital was freed-up, spending increased substantially on health, on education, on entertainment. So you need to look beyond the immediate goal to the spinoffs.

3:45 PM: Hey, it's former Chretien-era natural resources minister Herb Daliwhal! Long time, no heard from. Is David Anderson here? Maybe he and Herb can arm-wrestle for old time's sake.

4:08 PM: Coffee break time again, lots of great conversation on the topics in the room continues out in the hall during the breaks. Lots of discussion on the policy and political merits of a carbon tax.

Meanwhile, saw Gerard Kennedy during the break, holding up a laptop as he stood in a corner, doing a skype webcam call back to the satellite Canada at 150 event in his riding of Parkdale-High Park. Great to see, and a fantastic example of how this event is not just limited to those in the room, but is interacting with Liberals and interested Canadians across the country.

4:23 PM: Last panel of the day is on a digital economy strategy. Hope Stephen Harper is listening, his throne speech said Canada needed a digital economy strategy, but declined to say anything about what it could be. Maybe something to do with computers. So maybe some ideas for him here.

If we’re going to get into copyright though, let me just say, why in the hell does the copyright lobby have such a vice-grip on the nads of all our political parties? It pisses me off. Find some balls to bring sanity to copyright, there’s my digital economy plea.

Also, apparently they have the Internet on computers now.

4:29 PM: Maybe I’ve followed these issues too closely, as it crosses over into my day job, but I’m not really hearing anything yet that I haven’t heard before. Or anything about what we should do about it.

4:36 PM: I misread the session title, it’s not about the digital economy, it’s about culture and the digital world. And my interest level just dropped substantially. Expect light live blogging or here on out.

4:54 PM: Pretty sure I just heard a panellist ask if these questions coming in to the panel over twitter were “live” and saying that, if so, that’s cool? And they’re on a panel on something involving the digital world? Wait until they see how I can predict the weather with my phone!

5:10 PM: I’m sorry but I’m shaking my head about this call for cultural protection for Canadian cultural creators in a digital/Internet world. They need to stop playing the victim-card. You could say the fittest will survive, but it’s not just that.

Artists should look at the Internet as the best thing that ever happened to them. Why? Because it’s a low-cost transmission medium. No longer do creative professionals need a publishing house, or a broadcaster, to buy their show and broadcast it to audience and compensate them through a portion of advertising sales. That model is passé.

Smart content creators can use the Internet to bypass the middlemen and go straight to their audience. They need to monetize, but going direct to their audience, if they have content people value, will be cheaper for their audience and more lucrative for the artists.

So don’t kvetch to me about the need for cultural protectionism because of the web. The web is an opportunity they could seize – if they don’t insist on seeing themselves as victims in need of protection.

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Coming Thursday: Liberals talk policy. Pictures at 11

From CP's daily look-ahead to news events occurring Thursday comes this interesting entry:

QUEBEC _ Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff delivers the Liberal position on climate change, the environment and the clean economy. (Holds news conference at 12:45 p.m). (11:45 a.m. at Laval University, Cite Universitaire Theatre, Palasis-Prince Pavillon)

So be sure to stay tuned for that, should be interesting.

SPOILER ALERT!

I'm reasonably informed that the Liberal position will be in favour of the environment and in favour of the clean economy. Or so my senior sources say.

Probably still worth watching the announcement though.

P.S. Anyone want to bet the words "green" and "shift" don't appear within 400 words of each other in the speech?

But in all seriousness, if we're going to start talking real about policy and rolling-up our sleeves I think that's fantastic and welcome.

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What the AG is looking at: E-health and more

Auditor General Sheila Fraser is bringing down her next report next week (November 3rd) and a list of the topics she'll be reporting on has been released:

Fall 2009 Auditor General’s Report

Chapter 1, Evaluating the Effectiveness of Programs
Chapter 2, Selecting Foreign Workers Under the Immigration Program
Chapter 3, Income Tax Legislation
Chapter 4, Electronic Health Records
Chapter 5, Acquiring Military Vehicles for Use in Afghanistan
Chapter 6, Land Management and Environmental Protection on Reserves
Chapter 7, Emergency Management—Public Safety Canada
Chapter 8, Strengthening Aid Effectiveness—Canadian International Development Agency

A few interesting ones on there, particularly electronic health records. After all the drama that has been playing out on that front in Ontario, that one will be closely watched I think.

There's more of a preview at the AG's Web site:

Chapter 4—Electronic Health Records—The audit examined how Canada Health Infoway manages funds from the federal government to achieve its goals of making compatible electronic health records available across Canada. In addition, it looked at the role of Health Canada, the sponsoring department, in ensuring that Canada Health Infoway complies with the agreements under which it receives funding from the Department.

The environment commissioner will also be reporting at the same time:

Fall 2009 Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development’s Report
Chapter 1, Applying the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act
Chapter 2, Risks of Toxic Substances
Chapter 3, National Pollutant Release Inventory
Chapter 4, Environmental Petitions

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Back to blogging and catching up

I know I’ve been a bad blogger lately, but with a busy stretch at work, including trips to Nashville and New York City, it’s been hard to find the time to blog. And besides, I find a blogging sabbatical every now and again can be useful to recharge the batteries, not to mention step back from the partisan strife and gain a little perspective.

I’m back to it today though, so I thought I’d share some thoughts on some of the news and events that occurred during my absence.

Welcome to the Cheque Republic: Some have complained the Liberals have been going too big on the Conservative logos and MP signatures on cheques/partisan stimulus (and now expensive Go-Train ads) story. If they have gone overly big I don’t blame them one bit. They needed to do something to change the media narrative from Liberal suckiness and this is the kind of stuff the media love, so mission accomplished.

Is there an impact however beyond changing the channel? Remains to be seen. Certainty the cheques, and the analysis of stimulus spending favouring Conservative ridings spearheaded by Gerard Kennedy and now taken up by several media organizations, feeds a negative narrative of the Conservatives. Of course, the counter is, all politicians feather their own nests. True enough. The Liberals didn’t put party logos on cheques, but that’s a distinction most Canadians are unlikely to make.

This could be another in the “death of a thousand cuts” that eventually cause governments to fall, the jury is out. It certainly does take away the Conservative moral high-ground: they campaigned on being above all this. And it could be that what would be dismissed as the usual partisan pork-barreling will be viewed more negatively coming during an economic downturn, when the government had a responsibility to help all regions of the country that are suffering. We’ll see. These things can take a while to sink it, and this thing does stink.

As I said though, if nothing else it changed the channel for awhile, and that’s a good thing.

Liberals talk policy: I’ve been lamenting the Liberal Party’s unwillingness to talk policy outside of an election campaign, so I was pleased to see a change in strategy on that front with Michael Ignatieff talking Liberal policy on the environment, on early learning and childcare, and on womens issues.

I’m sure there weren’t as many details as some would like, but it was a good pre-election step at outlining what the priorities of a Liberal government would be, including a commitment to clean energy, renewable power and cap and trade. I was pleased to see a commitment to national childcare re-affirmed as well. And for the cynics out there, I’ll note the Liberals had a system all put in place and negotiated with most of the provinces before the Conservatives and the NDP (and the BQ) allied to defeat Paul Martin’s government. Finally, the “Pink Book” on women’s issues not only speaks to a key Liberal constituency, it also puts forward meaningful and real ideas, such as micro-credit facilities for female entrepreneurs.

It’s a very good start on the policy front. Now the challenge is to get creative about getting the word out about the policy proposals, and start a debate on our issues.

Non-confidence if necessary, not necessarily non-confidence: Apparently Michael Ignatieff said last week the Liberals won’t move non-confidence at every opportunity, and will take each vote on a case-by-case basis. The media said this was a back-down from the Liberal hard-line taken post-Sudbury. Certainty came across that way. The Liberal Party insisted this was the position they’ve taken all along, so no change. If that’s the case, the nuance of that message had certainly escaped me. And I’d have to attribute that more to their failure to communicate the message clearly than to my ability to comprehend it.

Nevertheless, it’s the right course. Clearly, the election brinkmanship and being seen as itching to go to the polls without having established a compelling narrative and case was hurting us. Taking a breath, starting to work on developing that case (and talking policy), indicating a willingness to work on some issues while still maintaining your lack of confidence is a sensible course.

The polls turned bad quickly, they can turn around just as quickly as well. It will take hard work, discipline and sound strategy, but it’s more than doable. As always, the devil is in the execution.

King me: This whole public spat between the Governor General and the Prime Minister over titles and constitutional prerogatives is childish on both their parts. Harper didn’t need to call Jean out in public. Jean didn’t need to stir the pot further. They were like two squabbling children.

What bothered me more though was when I’d read comments about Canada “clinging to its British colonial roots” and other such nonsense. Look, I think it is time to have a debate in Canada about our constitutional monarchy, and about having an elected Canadian head of state. I don’t want Charles on our money.

But that said, I get annoyed when I see people talking down or saying we should dismiss or downplay our British roots. This is our history. We should embrace it, not hide from it. Yes, Canada has welcomed people from all over the world and we’re a country that allows them to keep and even celebrates their unique heritages, and that diversity and celebration contributes to the Canadian identity. But our British roots are strong and undeniable, and celebrating our diversity doesn’t mean forgetting where we came from.

So I say Rule Britannia, God Save the Queen, and The Maple Leaf Forever (original lyrics, please and thanks)!

Silence, shmilence: The NDP seem to be in a tizzy because the Liberals won’t rubber-stamp some environmental private member’s bill of theirs before the Copenhagen conference on climate change. And some of the NDP blog types seem to think there’s some kind of Liberal blog conspiracy not to talk about it, which is totally more plausible than just maybe we have other things to talk of more import than empty NDP posturing. Let me break the supposed silence though to say poppycock.

I don’t think taking the time to give due consideration to the bill, to hear testimony, and to get information on costing is all that crazy. Actually, it I think that kind of thing is parliament’s job. How do I know that? The NDP told me once.

Rushing the bill through before Copenhagen isn’t enough reason to sacrifice due consideration. Whenever the bill is passed the Conservatives will ignore it, the world won’t notice or care, and it will have no impact on the government’s climate change policy whatsoever.

What this NDP posturing is really all about is politics, and re-establishing the environmental credibility that was left in tatters when they allied with the Conservatives to demonize the Liberal green shift, a real and meaningful climate change policy supported in principle by much of the mainstream environmental community, for no other reason than partisan politics.

So no, I don’t see any particular reason to rush through their bill just so they can try to be credible on climate change again. Let parliament do its job.

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(Video) Leaders show up

Stephen Harper's absence from key climate change meetings at the UN is not going unnoticed. When even CTV's Bob Fife is calling out a Conservative, you know he must be doing something wrong.

If 90 per cent of success is showing-up, we're just glad there's someone standing-up for the other 10 per cent.

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Michael Byers takes issue with NDP's attack on green shift

In the midst of an article where he spends the bulk of his time advocating a name change as the panacea for the NDP and far too little time on what really matters (policy reform), political science professor and former (and future?) NDP candidate Michael Byers has an interesting observation on NDP environmental policy in the last election:

In the last federal election, the NDP took the simple route of favouring cap-and-trade over carbon taxes. It ignored the fact that climate change will only ever be controlled by an across-the-board system of carbon pricing that includes both cap-and-trade and a carbon tax of some kind. A better approach would have been to support the intent of Stéphane Dion's proposal while identifying specific flaws, such as the failure to direct the resulting revenue into alternative sources of energy and an improved national rail network.

An interesting observation that both vindicates the Stephane Dion Green Shift (with the caveat of minor reforms around the disbursment of the funds raised) and without saying it outright, rejects the NDP strategy last election of demonizing the Green Shift, a strategy that didn't win it friends with the environmental movement and didn't help Carole James and the BC NDP much either when they tried it against Gordon Campbell's BC Liberals.

Of course, that didn't stop the professor from singing from the hymm book during the campaign.

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No snark necessary (just strategic bolding)

Less than 24 hours after Prime Minister Stephen Harper praised the G8 for its latest climate-change targets, his environment minister said those targets are ``aspirational'' and that Canada may not meet them.

Jim Prentice, in an interview with CBC from L'Aquila, Italy, said reducing emissions by 80 per cent by the year 2050 is an ``aspirational goal.''

The best-case scenario for the Harper government's climate-change program _ which does not yet have enforceable regulations in place _ is a reduction in Canada's greenhouse-gas emissions of up to 70 per cent by 2050.

Prentice said Canada does not need to change its policy.
(story)

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Do the thing or get off the pot, Steve

As the Stephen Harper Conservatives do their worst to hang onto government, while they do have power they remain determined not to do anything constructive with it:

The federal government made international headlines last year when it added bisphenol A to the country's toxic substances list, but it has quietly stopped issuing new reviews of hazardous chemicals under the program that highlighted the dangers of the plastic-making compound.

(snip)

Ottawa hasn't issued evaluations of any of them, stoking worries among public-health and environmental advocates that the government is cooling toward the plan, which the Conservatives touted as showing their green credentials when Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced it with great fanfare in 2006.

(snip)

There is speculation that Environment Minister Jim Prentice is holding up the process while Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq is ready to proceed, although officials from both departments declined to comment on the delay.

Are we beginning to see a pattern here?

The Harper government has not yet named the leader of a promised probe into the listeriosis outbreak that killed 20 people — a lag critics say discredits an already suspect process.

(snip)

An independent report was to be finished by March 15.

With less than three months to go, a senior government source confirmed there's still no lead investigator.

The delay raises fresh concerns among food-safety watchers, who doubt Conservative commitment to overhaul what they say is a chronically short-staffed inspection system.

Canada's Conservatives: Flashy announcements. Bold promises. No follow-through.

If they don't want to govern anymore, I know some folks that are willing to give it a shot. How does the saying go, Steve? Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

But back to the first story. It seems Conservative wunderkind Jim Prentice is losing the Conservatives some of the very few supporters their environmental platform has:

The delays are baffling supporters of the plan, including the Canadian Cancer Society, which is on a group Ottawa set up to advise it on the review.

"We don't know why the delays are continuing, and that's a concern," said Dan Demers, director of national public issues for the society.

He said the holdup affects "some chemicals we're very concerned about," including hexane, butane, and sulphuric acid.

Although environmentalists have pilloried the Conservatives over claims they aren't acting quickly enough on global warming, the government has won praise for its approach on toxic chemicals. Now, one prominent group that backed the government is reconsidering its position.

"If the government is now winging it when it comes to this supposedly clear procedure then we will be reassessing our support for this program," said Rick Smith, executive director of Environmental Defence.

I thought Prentice was the one that knew what he was doing?

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On the Green Shift

From CanWest:

(Bob) Rae said the Green Shift was pursued without applying common sense, good judgment or the daily experience of ordinary people. "Politics is not about philosophy or theory," he said in an interview with Canwest News Service.

Was the Green Shift sold badly, and was the timing bad? Yes. But it was the right policy. The people have rejected it, and we need to listen to them. But the intention was pure and noble. To address the issue of the 21st Century: Reconciling the economy with the environment. Stephane Dion's heart was absolutely in the right place, and I'm proud of him for that.

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Green, yes, but shift is now a profanity

I don't expect green issues to be a big part of this Liberal leadership race, for a variety of reasons.

First, in a time of economic crisis, people tend to care more about pocketbook issues than green issues. Now, you can argue that green issues are pocketbook issues, and this is true.

Second though, we kind of got our asses handed to us on the whole green shift thing last month (was it only last month? It feels like a lifetime ago). So I suspect no one will be very keen in this race to put green issues front and centre. There won’t be any green scarves in Vancouver this spring.

Now, that’s not to say the Liberal Party will be abandoning green issues. Far from it. The green focus wasn’t just some fad that Stephane Dion brought in all by his lonesome. Liberals of all stripes rallied to the green cause, and many people joined our party for the first time, because we recognized that reconciling the environment and the economy is the issue of the 21st Century. It’s a health issue, it’s a quality of life issue, it’s an economic issue. We must be at the forefront of the new green economy, to capture the green jobs of tomorrow.

Green issues, I’m sure, will be significant parts of the agenda of all the candidates. But in a way that is integrated and balanced with other issues that Canadians are concerned about, from the economy and health care to social issues and foreign policy.

As for those that are postulating a supposed abandonment of green issues by the Liberal Party will mean an opportunity for the NDP to pick-up environmental support…well, maybe, but I’m doubtful. The Greens, maybe. But those I talk to in the environmental community are very displeased (read: pissed) at the way the NDP put political expediency ahead of good environmental policy in its unfair slandering of the Green Shift in tandem with the Conservatives

The NDP has little credibility with serious environmentalists these days. If they're hoping to pick-up pro-environmental voters any time soon they're dreaming in technicolor.

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Pick up the phone Preston

Reform Party founder Preston Manning, who gave a young whipper-snapper named Stephen Harper his start in politics back in the day, is upset about the polarization of political debate in this country:

"In the political arena, because we're such a tolerant and moderate people, the quickest way to discredit your political opponent is not to argue against their position, but to take it to an extreme and argue against the extreme," Manning said at the conference, Securing Canada's Future in a Climate-Changing World, organized by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy.

"That is why we have no meaningful debate on health care in this country and why this debate in the political arena gets polarized between either [someone who says] 'you want to destroy the economy,' or 'you want to destroy the environment,' which is nobody's position, but in the political arena that's what it's reduced to."

You mean like taking an environmental plan hailed by both economists and environmentalists alike and, instead of debating it on its merits, calling it an idiotic and stupid permanent tax on everything? Something like that, Preston?

Speeches before the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy are great. But maybe you should give this speech to an audience of one. Say, in the PMO.

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Carbon tax? Sounds good, some political party should really propose one

Because if you can’t laugh at all these media stories talking about how a carbon shift is needed and is a pretty good idea that have been coming in droves since AFTER election day, then all you can do is cry salty, bitter tears of salty bitterness.

*Don't believe in climate change? You still need a carbon tax
*Debate over energy plans 'exaggerated'; Little difference between carbon tax, cap-and-trade programs: report
*Canadians may appear cold to the carbon tax - until you rephrase the question
*Some kind of carbon levy needed: economist
*Range of policies needed on climate change, study says
*Dion took a good green idea down with him
*Campaign misinformation has set back climate change debate
*Climate change fight 'an economic generator'
*Reluctant environmentalists; Why a carbon tax is coming, whether Canadians like it or not
*Green Shift had merits
*Dion took a great idea down with him

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Green shifting forward

In other green shift news, the Liberal Party added yet another high-profile candidate Wednesday:

Stephane Dion fine tuned his carbon-tax plan to make it more palatable to farmers, loggers, truckers and fishers Wednesday as he snagged Canada's highest-profile farmer as a Liberal election candidate.

Canadian Federation of Agriculture President Bob Friesen is the Liberal candidate for Charleswood-St. James, the Grits third attempt to wrest the riding from Tory control.

The announcement came this afternoon as Liberal Leader Stephane Dion rallied his caucus in Winnipeg with two huge tweaks to his Green Shift plan to help farmers and truckers cope with extra taxes on fuel.

...

Friesen, who has sold his farm near Wawanesa and is planning to buy a home in Winnipeg’s western suburb, said farmers will embrace the changes to the Green Shift plan.

Friesen will take on Steven Fletcher, who has bested former Winnipeg Mayor Glen Murray and former MLA John Loewen in the riding.

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Maybe it's that other Chantal Hebert

A scathing column on the NDP's opposition to the Liberal Green Shift by Chantal Hebert in the Toronto Star today. Unfortunately, due to my deep dislike of Hebert I can't get too excited, but it's still a nice read. And she actually resists taking unfair potshots at Stephane Dion for a change too.

As twisted as it may seem, the logic of advancing the cause of climate change by waging war on the Liberals at a time that party is winning kudos from much of Canada's environment movement for its Green Shift plan is what passes for strategy for the federal NDP these days.

And speaking of the possibly upcoming by-elections, the Liberals have two pretty good Quebec candidates there in Marc Garneau (Westmount--Ville-Marie) and Roxane Stanners (Saint Lambert). Fall by-elections would also likely include Guelph, where the Liberals are running Frank Valeriote, and Don Valley West, where the Liberal candidate is Rob Oliphant.

I'm not convinced we'll see by-elections this fall though. Even if they're called I expect (or hope) they'll be preempted by a general election this fall, unless a)Liberal cold feet resurface, b)The Cons play prorogual games to delay the HoC return, or c)After the Liberals agree to go, the NDP and BQ decide they don't want to just yet.

UPDATE: More from the Star on the carbon shift, this time from Lynn McDonald. In addition to being a professor, Lynn was an NDP MP from 1982 to 1988, including a stint as environment critic.

But does the NDP not realize that the poor are the worst hit by climate change? And will increasingly be harmed as global heating gets worse? Would Tommy Douglas have missed this?

Already there are environmental refugees and victims of drought and food shortages in Third World countries. In Canada traditional hunters (with very low incomes) have seen their livelihood harmed. What protection will the urban poor have as temperatures rise?

The NDP has historically been a leader in advocating social justice, but not now.

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Yo, will Stephen Harper make it to 91?

After Stephen Harper helped block real action on climate change at the G8 meetings that opposed 2020 targets, a tepid plan was developed that may halve emissions by 2050:

Canada trumpets G8 vow to halve emissions by 2050
Last Updated: Tuesday, July 8, 2008 | 11:55 AM ET
CBC News

The Group of Eight industrialized nations on Tuesday endorsed halving global emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 in a declaration praised by the Canadian government.

By which time Stephen Harper expects to already be long since dead and buried (literally, not just politically):

“In four decades I’d probably be dead — I’m sure that I will be dead.” (Stephen Harper, Dec. 18, 2006, Toronto Star)

As I look outside on a smoggy Toronto afternoon, I can’t help but wonder if Steve, and many other Canadians, might have a better shot at seeing 2050 if we did something about emissions just a little sooner then 2050. We’d need to lay off the apple fritters too, but it would help.

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Slim Liberal lead on the environment

On Sunday I wrote that the Conservatives were trying to shift the Green Shift debate from the environment to the economy because the former is a weakness for them and the latter a strength, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t present these numbers from Nanos on the environment question released Monday:

Question: Which federal party do you trust most to manage the following issues?
The environment
Liberals - 21%
Conservatives - 18%
NDP - 14%
Bloc - 3%
Greens - 13%
None - 16%
Unsure - 16%

And commentary from Nanos:

The poll shows a statistical tie between the Liberals and the Conservatives for trust on the enviroment. Of note, even with the launch of the Liberal “Green Shift Plan” the Liberals did not enjoy a significant advantage over the Conservatives on the environment.

Interesting numbers, and a little disappointing for the Liberals. Clearly we have some work to do, and with none and unsure totaling 32 per cent there are a lot of people on the fence waiting to be wooed. And frankly, if we can frame and sell this Green Shift right, with an actual plan we have a better chance of wooing those people than the Cons do with their “tax on everything” rhetoric but then, as discussed previously, the Cons aren’t trying on this category.

Rather, they and the NDP with their similar anti-shift rhetoric, are trying to blow-up the Liberal numbers on this issue. I’d argue those attacks contribute to the high none/unsure numbers, although dissatisfaction with the Liberal environment record in office (which I could defend somewhat but that’s another post) also makes it a little tougher for us to convince Canadians we’re serious this time, leaving people to sit on the fence here.

Despite the “statistical tie” as Nanos calls it, I think we’re best positioned here, IF we can convince Canadians that a) we’re serious this time and b) this is the right plan. The Cons aren’t going to move much here, particularly since they’re not trying. The NDP has been trying, and this is an area they’d expect to be strong. But they’re four back of the Cons and just one up on the Greens here. I think their opposition to a carbon shift while backing cap and trade, which is also part of a Liberal plan, has the potential to move some NDP support to the Liberals here. Some of their traditional green allies are confused.

Lastly though, I’d really like to see the regional breakdowns of these numbers. The PDF with the breakdowns hasn’t been posted on the Nanos site yet. As I noted Sunday with the economic numbers, high Conservative numbers in Alberta (and a little less in Quebec) made their lead on the economic question management seem higher than it was. It will be interesting to see how the environment question breaks-down across Canada.

Other numbers

Today’s release included two other issues that weren’t released previously, FYI:

National Unity
Liberals - 29%
Conservatives - 25%
NDP - 8%
Bloc - 4%
Greens - 2%
None - 17%
Unsure - 17%

Healthcare
Liberals - 25%
Conservatives - 23%
NDP - 14%
Bloc - 4%
Greens - 1%
None - 17%
Unsure - 16%

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Defining the issue: The environment, or the economy

I read somewhere last week that the reason the Cons are hiding their environment minister, John Baird, and are attacking the Liberal Green Shift (when they move beyond spit balls and raspberries) on economic, and not environmental, grounds is because they feel on safer ground making it an economic discussion.

That makes sense, particularly given the fact they have zero credibility on environmental issues. On the economy though, Conservatives (and conservatives) consistently tend to get better marks from the public as fiscal managers. The Cons likely had numbers like these from Nanos in mind when calling the play:


As a Liberal these are frustrating numbers. We usually see similar figures in the U.S., where Republicans are generally seen as better on the economy, despite the fact it was the Democrats and Bill Clinton that balanced the budget and returned a surplus, which the Republicans and George W. Bush turned into a trillion-dollar deficit with tax cuts for the rich that failed to trickle down. And in Canada, people tend to forget it was the Liberals that balanced the budget and returned us to the era of surpluses, while Jim Flaherty and Stephen Harper have turned-in the highest-spending budgets in Canadian history.

It’s just one of those common perceptions that’s actually a misconception, I suppose. Can the Liberals ever claim their rightful, deserved high ground as the soundest fiscal managers? It’s a public relations challenge, and while we don’t want to shift the debate to a perceived Conservative strength it is a point worth making, I think.

And maybe we’re not that far behind the eight-ball on the economy after all. The Nanos PDF doesn’t include regional breakdowns. I happened to pick up the Toronto Sun today though (I don’t do it often, I promise) and it did include regional numbers. And while the national numbers give the Cons an eight-point lead, the regional numbers are illuminating:

Atlantic Canada: Liberals 25.9, Cons 25.3, NDP 5.9, Greens 0.0
Quebec: Cons 26.1, Liberals 19.5, Bloc 11.3, NDP 8.2, Greens 1.3
Ontario: Cons 30.4, Liberals 30.1, NDP 8.2, Greens 0.8
West: Cons 39.0, Liberals 20.0, NDP 9.5, Greens 2.0

Looking at the breakdown, I’d argue the Cons’ 19-point lead in the West is skewing the national numbers. And I bet the number is something like 99 per cent in Alberta, so in the rest of the West it would be a little more competitive. With the exception of Quebec and the West/Alberta, the Liberals are actually competitive on the economy in the rest of Canada, tied within the margin. Given that this is a traditional Conservative area of strength, those are positive numbers, and argues a Liberal push on the economy, while a challenge, isn’t the uphill battle the national figures make it seem.

Which isn’t to say we should move away from the environmental ground when it comes to the Green Shift. That’s an area of strength for us. But in addition to being an environmental issue, this absolutely is an economic issue too. The new green economy is going to create jobs developing and implanting new clean, green technologies. That’s where the “megatonnes of money” quote the Conservatives cut and pasted out of context came from (speaking of tape editing...).

And we need to do a better job of poking holes in the myth of Conservative sound economic management. I like John McCallum, but having a more dynamic finance critic in the fall might help. Maybe Martha-Hall Findlay can be more up front. From income trusts to ballooning spending to questionable tax cuts to picking fights with Ontario, the Cons are vulnerable here.

It's not a choice between the two. The environment and the economy don’t exist in isolation. We need to push on both.

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Mason: Carbon shift opponents “playing politics with the planet”

Good column in the Globe and Mail yesterday by Gary Mason on the carbon shift debate. He focuses mainly on the debate between the Campbell Liberals and James NDP in B.C., but also makes several references to the national debate over the Dion plan as well. There are actually pretty clear parallels between how the opponents both federally and provincially are trying to take the idea down.

You know what the most depressing thing is about the carbon tax implemented today by the B.C. government? It's not the 2.34 cents a litre it adds to the price of gas at the pump. It's the sad, pathetic and often hypocritical political attacks the tax has been under at the expense of any clear-eyed, intelligent discussion about feasible alternatives.

(Just to note, of course, no direct gas tax increase through the Dion Liberal Green Shift plan.)

If I could urge Canadians to do anything in the next few months, it would be this: Don't let politicians do your thinking for you. Arm yourself with knowledge so when they come and try to snow you for crass political gain, you can call them on it.

There's too much at stake to do otherwise.

Indeed. To do otherwise would be, to use a word, crazy.

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Dion forecasts a Green Shift

During his travels to sell the Liberal Green Shift plan, Stephane Dion was in Toronto last week and made a stop at City-TV. While there, he took a shot at forecasting the weather in a fun video available here.

On the Green Shift, I don’t think it’s a perfect plan but I think it’s a pretty good one, and it’s gone reasonably well so far for the Liberals. One of my concerns at first was why carbon tax revenues would be used for anti-poverty measures. Not that I’m against anti-poverty measures, I just thought that a carbon shift wasn’t the place to deal with it. However, given that low income people don’t have much income to shift, special initiatives to focus on that demographic help to blunt the impact of the green shift on them and counter the criticism it will hurt the poor.

There has been predictable criticism from the Conservatives that the Liberals are out to get the West, or specifically Alberta and Saskatchewan. While those provinces will indeed likely be more hit, that doesn’t mean the Liberals are out to get them; it just means they produce a lot of oil, with corresponding environmental impact. The fact is, any serious environmental plan is going to have an impact on Alberta, it can’t be helped. Which is perhaps why the Conservatives are only pretending to care about the environment, without taking any serious action. The oil boom isn't going to last forever but the environment needs too, I expect/hope many Westerners will know that.

Much has been made this week of a poll showing energy has surpassed the environment as the top concern of Canadians, although only by two per cent. I don’t think this is bad for the green shift though. Indeed, the two issues, along with the other top concern, the economy, are intrinsically linked. Energy prices are only going to keep going up, as people compete for an increasingly scarce resource. We need to put more effort into developing alternative energy sources, and if the carbon shift makes oil less attractive and makes it more attractive to look at alternatives, that’s a good thing.

Anyway, overall the jury is still out on the carbon shift and its political success. Many of the columnists and political elites are against it, polls show the people are much more receptive. Much will depend on the sales job the Liberals do over the next few months.

At the least, though, Dion and the Liberals have succeeded in taking the initiative, and setting the debate for a change rather than just reacting to the Conservatives. And by staking his political future on a risky policy proposal you can say what you will about him, but you can’t say he’s a wimp or not a leader anymore.

And for once it’s the Conservatives on the defensive, and that ain’t bad. With criticism like "it's crazy" and "it'll screw everyone" along with the complete lack of a viable alternative plan to present, the Conservatives are being increasingly exposed as unsuited to govern.

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More carbon shifting validation

More third-party validation around the emerging Liberal proposal around carbon shifting. In addition to such folks as David Suzuki, Elizabeth May and Sierra Club Canada’s Stephen Hazell, among many others, you can now add Christopher Ragan to the list. Ragan is an economics professor at McGill, and offers a very reasoned explanation of how it’s not quite fair to say a carbon shift would disproportionally impact low income Canadians. It's an interesting read.

More is probably needed, but the carbon tax would be an excellent start. It creates the right incentives to reduce fossil-fuel use while not increasing the government's tax take. Few economists doubt that such an idea has real merit; indeed, a carbon tax recently appeared at the top of a long list of policies in a fascinating priority-setting project published recently by the Institute for Research on Public Policy.

(snip)

First, they (the NDP –ed.) dislike the carbon tax because it would raise prices for gasoline, heating oil, and many other things bought by ordinary Canadians. They favour instead a cap-and-trade system imposed on large industrial polluters. They appear not to understand that a cap-and-trade system, even if it applied only to large industrial firms, would nonetheless increase the prices of most products because firms would be required to purchase costly "emissions permits," thus increasing their costs. Some of these higher costs would clearly be passed on to consumers.

The NDP also argue that the Liberal carbon tax would be especially bad for low-income households because they spend a relatively large fraction of their monthly income on gasoline and heating oil. But they miss the crucial point that higher-income households spend more - in absolute terms - on carbon-based energy than do lower-income households.

(snip)

Here is the neat part, at least for the low-income households. The easiest way to reduce personal income taxes across the board would be to increase the basic personal exemption by the same amount for all taxpayers. If this approach were taken, the tax reduction for low-income households would be larger than the amount they paid in higher carbon taxes.

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