Yesterday, the Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report that unsurprisingly states that the federal carbon price will need to increase significantly, absent other measures. This is not news. We all know this is the case. We also know that the government is finalising all kinds of other non-price measures as part of their plans to exceed our 2030 Paris targets, including the Clean Fuel Standard, and we have Jonathan Wilkinson on the record stating that they are nearly ready and should be out before the end of the calendar year. Why the PBO and others feel the need to keep repeating that absent other measures the carbon price would need to increase significantly to meet those targets, I’m not sure, because all it does is start a new round of media nonsense about how awful the current prices are (they’re not), and that this is all one big socialist plot, or whatever. And there are more measures on the way, so the question becomes fairly moot.

Speaking of the Clean Fuel Standard, there was a bunch of clutched pearls and swooning on fainting couches over the past couple of weeks when a former MP and current gasoline price analyst indicated that said Standard would be like a super-charged carbon price, and a bunch of Conservatives and their favoured pundits all had a three minutes hate about it. What I find amusing is that these are the same people who a) claim to believe in the free market, b) oppose the carbon price which is a free market mechanism to reducing carbon emissions, and c) are calling for more regulation, which the Clean Fuel Standard is, even though regulations are opaquer as to the cost increases that will result. There is an argument to be had that the government should focus on increasing the carbon price over other regulatory measures (though I would disagree with the ones that say all of said measures should be abandoned in favour of the price), but getting exercised because the very regulatory measures you are looking for cost more money means that you’re not really serious about it in the first place.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau is acknowledging that the government is preparing for situations where there could (will?) be instability in the US following the election.
• Trudeau and Doug Ford announced that each level of government was putting in $295 million to convert the Ford plant in Oakville to electric vehicle production.
• Carla Qualtrough talks about the coming employment strategy for people with disabilities, and is open to an entrepreneurial stream as a part of it.
• Several ministers are planning to hold a meeting with Indigenous leaders about addressing racism in healthcare delivery.
• A new report shows high levels of “unwanted sexualized behaviours” at the country’s two military colleges, and higher than average rates of sexual assault.
• Here’s a look at how Health Canada is trying to speed approval of potential COVID vaccines that are currently in trials.
• The Privacy Commissioner is concerned that the country’s privacy laws can’t keep up with the vulnerabilities that the pandemic and move to online work has exposed.
• The Order of Canada has been nominating men to a far greater extent than women, which is prompting complaints that it isn’t reflective of the country’s diversity.
• Stephen Harper’s son, Ben, is now working as an aide in Jason Kenney’s office.
• Max Fawcett explodes the myths about Alberta separation that are currently being promulgated by some supposed “big thinkers.”
• Kevin Carmichael recounts Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem’s warnings that current debt is posing a future risk to the economy that needs to be managed.
• Heather Scoffield wonders why the government isn’t moving faster to meet its Net Zero carbon plans, especially with Mark Carney offering guidance on them.
• Colby Cosh teases out some interesting quirks from yesterday’s Supreme Court of Canada ruling on peremptory challenges.

Odds and ends:

Thirteen members of a white far-right militia have been arrested for a plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan, in case you wondered how America is doing.

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