Roundup: Hoping it won’t be that bad (but it will be)

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Because we’re in the middle of re-litigating the carbon levy yet again ahead of the Conservatives’ planned confidence vote, some familiar patterns are emerging, some of which are from the Elder Pundits who are, yet again, playing the “It won’t be that bad!” card, when in fact, yes it will be. Case in point was John Ivison reaching out to Ken Boessenkool, former Conservative advisor, to talk about the industrial carbon price, and Boessenkool (whose post-political career involves a lot of validating the Elder Pundits’ belief that it won’t be that bad) told him that the majority of those prices are provincially regulated, so they should remain intact. Which is not an assumption I would make because we have several provinces who believe that they can reach their reduction targets without any price (which is stupid), and they want to keep attracting investment, particularly in oil and gas, so they are likely to either greatly reduce their industrial price, or kill it altogether. This will in turn trigger a race to the bottom among other provinces, so the prices become useless. This is the whole reason why a federal benchmark and backstop were created—so that provinces couldn’t do that, and why the Supreme Court validated this as a legitimate exercise of federal powers. (Incidentally, Jenni Byrne disavowed Boessenkool after that piece went to print, which pretty much validates my point).

Meanwhile, other Elder Pundits are trying to write about the alternatives the Conservatives will use instead of the carbon levy, but even there, as they assert that while the levy is the best mechanism but there are others (because remember, they want to keep insisting it won’t be that bad), but that is a misread of what the Conservatives are actually promising, which is to tear up everything the Liberals have done, and rely on magic (in part because they don’t want to do anything, excuse themselves from doing anything by insisting that we’re only two percent of emission so what we do doesn’t matter, and any action they do take will only be “aspirational.”) For what it’s worth, the NDP also believe in the magic that they can only price carbon for corporations and it won’t be passed along to consumers, or that consumers won’t have to change any behaviour because corporations are evil. And it’s really, really depressing because the actions are having a difference, we have bent our emissions curve downward, and this is going to just upend everything for the sake of authoritarian populism, while the gods damned Elder Pundits tut-tut that the carbon levy must be bad because it’s unpopular, never mind that their refusal to understand of communicate it, or to refute the lies about it, have contributed to this situation. Good job, everyone. Enjoy your summers of wildfire smoke, and your melting icecaps.

Ukraine Dispatch

Russians struck an apartment building in Kharkiv, wounding 21 civilians, as Ukraine destroyed 71 out of 80 attack drones overnight. There were also air strikes on Zaporizhzhia that injured 13 civilians. President Zelenskyy is hoping for faster action from the Americans, ahead of his visit to the White House, given that Ukrainian drone strikes have hit Russian arms depots, destroying thousands of tonnes of weaponry.

Good reads:

  • Justin Trudeau is in New York, and addressed the UN’s Summit of the Future ahead of the General Assembly. He will also appear on the Colbert Report while there.
  • Germany’s international climate change envoy is warning Canada that there isn’t growing demand for LNG exports as certain parties like to claim.
  • The Globe talks to economists about the Bloc’s demand for increased OAS payments, and they largely denounce it as bad policy that won’t solve problems.
  • The CEO of Telesat is correcting the record about the loan from the government, and the calls from Conservatives to have Elon Musk do the project instead.
  • The Liberals appear to be walking back their previous policy of not holding private fundraisers, in part because the Conservatives are outpacing them.
  • The Star hears from NDPers, who are trying to assert just what Jagmeet Singh thinks he’s up to with his decisions around confidence in the government.
  • François Legault has been sharing Conservative social media posts that call the Bloc “accomplices” of Trudeau (because he’s totally not being a petulant child).
  • British Columbia is now in an election as the writs were drawn up on Saturday, and there are six new seats plus redistribution to contend with.
  • Kevin Carmichael ponders the Brookfield Investment proposal, as the Conservatives try to rail about Mark Carney and imagined conflicts of interest.
  • Mike Moffatt defends the new mortgage rules for new builds as helping to revive the ability to drive new builds in the condo market in particular.
  • Althia Raj argues that last week was a pretty bad one for Poilievre, as the Liberals’ fortunes in Parliament appear to have revived (for the moment).
  • Susan Delacourt debate the current political moment, and whether it’s a matter of when and not if the government falls before the next scheduled election.
  • My weekend column wonders if the Liberals’ decision to detonate their grassroots organizations is something that is hurting them more than they want to admit.

Odds and ends:

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