Roundup: Alberta sends the wrong (price) signals

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It was Throne Speech day in Alberta, and sure enough, it contained an ambitious laundry list of upcoming legislation designed to undo much of what the NDP had put into place as a means of “restoring” the mythical Alberta Advantage. (Full speech here). Shortly thereafter, the promised Bill 1 to repeal the province’s carbon levy was introduced – pretty much guaranteeing that the federal carbon price will be imposed once the bill is enacted. It doesn’t repeal all of the carbon prices in the province, however – it merely shifts them to the largest polluters, which does nothing about the demand side of carbon consumption, and won’t shift consumer behaviours, nor will it do enough for those large emitters, because for all of Kenney’s talk about looking to protect the energy sector, he just shifted the bulk of the burden onto them. (It also won’t really help consumers because poorer households will be worse off now).

Meanwhile, here’s Andrew Leach to explain why Kenney’s repeal of the carbon price is handing a rhetorical victory to Ontario, and why the reliance on magical technology from the future to reduce emissions won’t happen if there aren’t proper price signals to spur its development.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau announced a $15.7 billion plan for new Coast Guard ships involving all three major shipyards, which pretty much makes the established plan moot.
  • In what is now commonplace, Trudeau was heckled by protesters during a fundraiser speech while in Vancouver.
  • The government has hired a company to deal with the garbage situation in the Philippines, as their president ups his rhetoric.
  • Pablo Rodriguez announced the composition of the panel who will advise on the newspaper bailout, and it is all journalism associations and unions, including Unifor.
  • The Chief of Defence Staff admits to not handling the Kandahar memorial issue properly as families of those fallen soldiers are objecting to being shut out.
  • Here’s a longread on the RCMP’s attempt to remove members of the Force who have disabilities, and their fight to keep their jobs.
  • Two historians explain the significance of the federal government decision to exonerate Chief Poundmaker after the Northwest Rebellion.
  • StatsCan released a survey on the state of sexual misconduct in the military, and the numbers have not been changing significantly since Operation Honour began.
  • The former BC Liberal health minister, Terry Lake, has come out of retirement to run for the federal Liberals in the fall election.
  • Andrew Scheer promised to get tough on human trafficking, largely via the Criminal Code (rather than things like reducing the poverty that makes people vulnerable)
  • One-time Conservative Cabinet minister Stephen Fletcher (currently an independent Manitoba MLA) has decided to run for Maxime Bernier’s party.
  • Kevin Carmichael points out all of the things in the IMF’s preliminary report card on Canada’s economy that Bill Morneau glossed over in his reaction.
  • Carmichael also looks at the Bank of Canada’s decision to start treating climate change as an economic risk.
  • Chantal Hébert isn’t seeing Maxime Bernier to be the threat to Andrew Scheer that some initially thought he might be.
  • Chris Selley is sounding the alarm about the Liberals’ process for input on their media bailout package.
  • My column looks at how the Liberals’ rush to pat themselves on the back for their changes to their appointments system may be premature.

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One thought on “Roundup: Alberta sends the wrong (price) signals”

  1. Terry Lake was far from being “retired” he was in fact a director for Hexo and I believe he is still. He by all accounts amassed a fortune in Hexo shares and I haven’t heard of his resignation. This is not a crime…he assisted the company through its growing years and was a leading advocate for legalization.

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