Words
I had a great big post about the carbon tax thing this morning. It was a classic Warren-Ten-Reasons thing, and it mixed together my lunch at the Wagon Wheel in Winnipeg (shake, open-faced turkey sandwich, well-done fries and a quadruple bypass) and bunch of other stuff about how it was the federal Liberal Party's policy Vietnam.
I was quite proud of it. Then the Blackberry ate it. So it goes.
So, seeing as how I have to work, and given that I was away in the 'Peg for a few days and all that, here is what I think about Stéphane Dion's carbon tax plan, really fast.
Forget about the fact that, with fuel prices having gone up a billion per cent in recent months, we already have a driver-deterring carbon tax. Forget about the fact that it is unfair to people on fixed incomes (like the elderly) and the poor (who have to heat their homes and buy food, too), and is therefore profoundly un-Liberal. Forget about the fact that it neglects to tax other dangerous greenhouse gases. Forget about the fact that we would all like to see political parties investing in things like electric cars, instead of continuing to invest in internal combustion engines (and not just lunging at our wallets all the time). Forget about the fact that not a single voter - not one - will ever be convinced that a government will apply the resulting mountains of revenue to helping the environment and not, say, paving a road in someone's riding. Forget about all of that.
It's bad politics. It is already confusing voters. It therefore gives the Tories a Hell of an opening to swift boat the Liberals on the environment - again (a six-year-old could write the attack spots). It reinforces the impression that federal Libs are utterly disconnected from the day-to-day lives of real Canadians, sipping lattés at Starbucks and listening to CBC Two, while the Tories are down at Tim's with 30 million other regular folks, talking hockey.
Here's my point: if you want to advocate a policy that will contribute to you losing, then you will not get an opportunity to enact that policy. And, if your loss is a big one - say, September 4, 1984 big - then you render your policy Kryptonite, and ensure (à la John Tory, with his funding of private religious schools thing) no political party will ever go near it again.
I'm not saying no to a carbon tax. I'm saying no to a carbon tax now.
I was quite proud of it. Then the Blackberry ate it. So it goes.
So, seeing as how I have to work, and given that I was away in the 'Peg for a few days and all that, here is what I think about Stéphane Dion's carbon tax plan, really fast.
Forget about the fact that, with fuel prices having gone up a billion per cent in recent months, we already have a driver-deterring carbon tax. Forget about the fact that it is unfair to people on fixed incomes (like the elderly) and the poor (who have to heat their homes and buy food, too), and is therefore profoundly un-Liberal. Forget about the fact that it neglects to tax other dangerous greenhouse gases. Forget about the fact that we would all like to see political parties investing in things like electric cars, instead of continuing to invest in internal combustion engines (and not just lunging at our wallets all the time). Forget about the fact that not a single voter - not one - will ever be convinced that a government will apply the resulting mountains of revenue to helping the environment and not, say, paving a road in someone's riding. Forget about all of that.
It's bad politics. It is already confusing voters. It therefore gives the Tories a Hell of an opening to swift boat the Liberals on the environment - again (a six-year-old could write the attack spots). It reinforces the impression that federal Libs are utterly disconnected from the day-to-day lives of real Canadians, sipping lattés at Starbucks and listening to CBC Two, while the Tories are down at Tim's with 30 million other regular folks, talking hockey.
Here's my point: if you want to advocate a policy that will contribute to you losing, then you will not get an opportunity to enact that policy. And, if your loss is a big one - say, September 4, 1984 big - then you render your policy Kryptonite, and ensure (à la John Tory, with his funding of private religious schools thing) no political party will ever go near it again.
I'm not saying no to a carbon tax. I'm saying no to a carbon tax now.