Roundup: What free market mechanism?

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The Conservative reaction to the imposition of a federal minimum carbon price has been fascinating, in part because of just how counterfactual it would be to how an actual conservative party would behave. You would think that an actual small-c conservative party would believe in market principles and would think that imposing price incentives (the carbon price) would be great because it would force the market to innovate to reduce the costs associated, hence reducing the carbon emissions in the least onerous way possible with the costs being fully transparent.

But no. We don’t actually have a small-c conservative party in this country, we have right-flavoured populists who would rather rail about “taxes on everything” and give sad homilies about how hard done by the workers of this country are, and how carbon taxes are just letting millionaires claim tax credits on the backs of the ordinary people of this country. No, seriously – these are things that the Conservatives have said in QP. And Rona Ambrose then goes on TV and says that the government should be regulating major emitters in a way that won’t cost consumers (never mind that regulations are the most costly mechanism available and it simply hides the true costs). It’s mind-boggling.

And so we now have all but one leadership candidate railing about carbon taxes, and the only one who agrees with carbon pricing, Michael Chong, insists that this is the wrong way to do it, that it should be revenue neutral for the taxpayer (never mind that provinces could institute that if they want, but they are given the flexibility to do with as they choose). Meanwhile, Paul Wells takes a torch to Lisa Raitt’s overwrought homilies about the poor people suffering under carbon taxes, and applies a little math to the analysis, which doesn’t fare well for Raitt. Likewise, Andrew Coyne laments the lack of a serious discussion on carbon pricing as the cheapest and least onerous way to reduce emissions. But this is currently the state of conservative politics in this country.

Good reads:

  • Privy Council documents show that cabinet decided that the economic benefits of Pacific NW LNG outweighed the adverse environmental effects.
  • 40 BC First Nations groups have sent letters in support of pipeline projects, complicating the narrative that Indigenous groups are unified in opposition.
  • John McCallum may have said that he’d consider a moratorium on citizenship revocations without due process, but the department says they’re carrying on.
  • The RCMP’s internal discipline process is swamped with case files and it’s causing significant delays.
  • Here’s a look at the difficulty of trying to deal with the issue of stoned drivers as marijuana legalization is on the horizon.
  • Brad Wall is exploring “legal options” about fighting the federal carbon price, even though experts have said it’s a lost cause.
  • Trudeau says that he’s not resurrecting the federal minimum wage, nor upping it to $15.
  • The federal government posted a narrow $1 billion deficit last year, which was much smaller than they had anticipated.
  • Michael Cooper’s tantrum in the Commons aside, Justin Trudeau said the Conservative decision to shut the Iran embassy has complicated the Azer case.
  • A survey of academics puts Justin Trudeau at the top ranking of short-term prime ministers, while Harper is at number 10 on the ranks of long-term PMs.
  • Sources are saying that Tony Clement is having a tough time fundraising enough for the party’s official entry fee into the leadership race.
  • Kady O’Malley recaps the debate on changing the rules of the Commons.
  • Susan Delacourt talks about the ways in which we talk politics over holiday dinner tables, and about hardening attitudes coming up to Canada.

Odds and ends:

Here is a long read about Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, which focuses a lot on her New-Agey spiritual beliefs.

The Parti Québécois have voted in yet another new leader. Still no word on the Bloc’s leadership race.

2 thoughts on “Roundup: What free market mechanism?”

  2. There are also a ton of tax credits for exploration and development that could be gradually shut off. That would increase the cost of production, and the #CPC couldn’t rail on about new taxes strangling the economy.

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