Roundup: Poisoning the free market well

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Last week, former Reform Party leader Preston Manning stated that conservatives across the country need to get their acts together when it comes to real environmental plans – but then made the boggling case that the Liberals and NDP had “poisoned” the notion of carbon prices, so those were off the table. I can barely even. Stephen Harper called for carbon pricing in the form of a cap-and-trade system when Stéphane Dion was calling for a carbon tax, until Harper decided that doing nothing was preferable to the actual decent plan that he had a hand in developing. For Manning to blame the Liberals and NDP for poisoning the well is more than a little rich – particularly considering that you have a center-left party adopting free market principles in carbon pricing, which you would think would overjoy a small-c conservative. But no.

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1201524374106451973

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1201528489507270656

https://twitter.com/AaronWherry/status/1201528491365273600

Meanwhile, the story about those conservative premiers who signed a Memorandum of Understanding about developing Small Modular Reactors? Well, it turns out that the MOU is basically about declaring interest in the hopes of forcing the federal government to invest in their research and development – so that they don’t have to put any of their own dollars up front. Add to that the temptation for them to treat this as a form of technosalvation – that they can cite it as the excuse for why they’re not doing more to reduce emissions in the short-term – and it all looks very much to be a big PR exercise. (Look surprised!)

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau is off at the NATO summit in London, but will have a meeting with Donald Trump there about the state of New NAFTA ratification.
  • The Council of the Federation all came to swift agreement that they want Ottawa to give them more money, which should surprise no one at all.
  • The aircraft used by the GG, members of the royal family and the prime minister had a hangar mishap and is out of commission until next year.
  • Right-of-way construction begins on the Trans Mountain expansion today.
  • The Canadian Forces are investigating whether there is a “culture” of theft within the Special Forces.
  • The list of ministerial chiefs of staff is now posted, if you’re into that kind of Kremlinology.
  • Conservative MP Michelle Rempel wants more privacy enforcement on major tech companies.
  • We’re seeing a number of people putting their name forward for the leadership of the Green Party.
  • Maclean’s talks to UCP delegates at last weekend’s AGM, and a lot of them were unimpressed with Andrew Scheer and keen to see him gone.
  • Chris Turner calls out Jason Kenney’s “Facebook McCarthyism” as he creates a list of enemies to turn his followers against as a distraction from his own cuts.
  • Chantal Hébert sees the toning down of rhetoric by certain conservative premiers as a sign that they also lost ground after the federal election.
  • Heather Scoffield offers praise for Mark Carney taking on the role of UN Special Envoy for climate change.
  • Colby Cosh digs into the issue of Remicade and provinces trying to force patients onto biosimilars for cost reasons.

Odds and ends:

My latest video for Loonie Politics explains the Senator Lynn Beyak situation, and why she can’t just be fired from the Senate.

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