Carbon Tax or Cap-and-Trade?

Let's say that for political reasons, there is going to be some sort of carbon pricing regime.  Maybe we'll do it to combat global warming which is stupid because:

• The planet isn't warming.
• The planet is warming, but it has nothing to do with man-made emissions.
• The planet is warming, but Canada's 2% contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is negligible, and a 10% cut, or a 20% cut, or a 50% cut, or even a 100% cut in a negligible contribution is a negligible improvement.

But hey, it wouldn't be the first time things are done for stupid reasons.  Heck, stupid reasons notwithstanding, carbon pricing might still be a good thing to do, for some good reasons:

• Pollution is bad, and assuming a correlation between greenhouse gas emissions (probably harmless) and other sorts of emissions (certainly nasty) is a strong one, then cutting back on carbon emissions means cutting back on other forms of real pollution.
• Energy efficiency is good, and carbon usage as a function of GNP might be considered a measure of efficiency, one that can be shifted in the more efficient direction.
• Maybe there's a way to make money from this.

And then there is the most important reason of all:

• Despite the best efforts of better informed members of society, the majority has drunk deeply of the global warming Kool-Aid, and demand something be done, even if it makes no good sense at all.

One particular carbon pricing scheme has always made more sense to me.  If we need to do this thing, let's at least do it right.  Or at least as right as is possible to do something that is intrinsically ridiculous.

Michael Ignatieff's last minute plea for cash

I received an email from Michael Ignatieff's fundraising operation.  It was remarkable for its stark simplicity as well as the timing.

Green Party accepting anonymous donations [updated]

The Green Party of Canada is accepting hundreds of dollars in donations from anonymous donors.  We don't know if these are people who have already reached their donation limits, or if these are donations from corporations or unions, or if these donations are actually from Canadians instead of from environmental activists from beyond our borders.

It matters because in any of these cases, the donations would be illegal.  Which is why anonymous donations are illegal in the first place.

Elizabeth May jokes about suicide

Green Party leader Elizabeth May seems to lack the most basic ability all successful politicians have to pause in order to consider her words carefully, and then answer a question without offending people or making light of a serious subject.

In an interview with the Guelph Mercury editorial board, Elizabeth May says she was close to slitting her wrists after listening to the leader's debate during the last election, finding the politicians remarks too well packaged.

The editorial board was taken aback by Elizabeth May's flippant reference to suicide, and as a result, Elizabeth May spoiled an opportunity to deliver the Green Party message.

It makes me wonder just why the Green Party puts up with her.  It isn't the first time this has happened.

Pharmaceutical patents and the return of evergreening

There has been a fight playing out in slow motion for over two years between the big pharmaceutical companies, the government, and the bureaucrats at Health Canada.  Losses in the Supreme Court by big pharmaceuticals are being redressed by regulatory changes, and as a result, the contentious practice of "evergreening" is poised to make a comeback two years after it was deemed to be counter to the Canada Health Act.

Maxime Bernier is out, but expect the Liberals to make the situation even worse (and a suggestion about Jason Kenney)

Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier has tendered his resignation, and it has been accepted.  Not much could be done in this situation -- Maxime Bernier had lost track of sensitive documents, and that's a firing offense.

The government will work swiftly to make sure that any breach does not compromise Canadian security or the security of our allies.  On the other hand, you can be certain that the Liberals will look to maximize any damage in exchange for political points.

Oh, and my vote is for Jason Kenney as the next minister of foreign affairs.

Trying to understand how "revenue neutral" works

I want to maintain a constant flow of water into a basin that has a drain in the bottom.  I have two taps.  One tap is on and the water flow in balances the water flow out.  I turn on the other tap.  The sink is starting to fill up, so I turn down the first tap by the same amount as the second tap was turned up.

I've achieved a neutral flow.

But now the flow from the second tap is starting to shrink.  It's not my doing.  It's just getting smaller and I can't control it other than opening the second tap even more.  The water in the basin is starting to shrink away.  To get back to a neutral flow, I need to increase the the flow from the first tap, or increase the flow from the second tap. 

But what I can't do is let the flow from both taps shrink away.  I need water in the basin.  More water is going to have to come in from one of the two taps.

Follow me?

Predicting Stephane Dion's carbon tax

Stephane Dion is going to roll out a carbon tax plan.  Canadians are praising it or denouncing it, without any idea of what the plan is actually going to be.

Let's try and figure it out.  Just the base carbon tax rate and nothing more.  It's not really all that hard to do.

What happened to Garth Turner's ecotourism The Credit River Company? [updated]

This was pure accident to have tripped over this.  I was Googling for local points of interest, and in my linking I came across The Credit River Company.  It promotes itself as an ecotourism company that restores heritage buildings.

It also sounded familiar.

As it is, the founder and CEO was Liberal MP Garth Turner.  Yeah.  Him again.  Honest, I wasn't looking for this.

Anyway, I went to the website, and was very surprised at what I found.  It looks like Garth Turner has gone out of the ecotourism business.

Are the Liberals quoting the CBC's Rex Murphy out of context?

The Liberal Party has just sent out an email, and in the lead piece, the party quotes experts who are heaping praise on Stephane Dion's idea for a carbon tax.

One of those experts is Rex Murphy.

I remember the piece being quoted.  Rex Murphy gave Stephane Dion credit for being logically consistent, but I didn't see any praise for the tax itself.

It's hard to tell from the two sentences extracted from the essay.

Garth Turner, the Future NDP Member for Halton

Chris Selley, aka Megapundit, who blogs for Maclean's, has the best line I've seen today.  Not only is it funny, it's prescient.

Garth Turner turns on the Liberal Party

Liberal communications advisor Garth Turner warns the disloyal MPs are hurting Stephane Dion.

Hurting who?

What sort of MPs?

Communications advisor?!

Richard Brennan, Guy Giorno, and payback time

With the news that former chief of staff to former Ontario premier Mike Harris, Guy Giorno, is taking over from Ian Brodie as chief of staff to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

People are trying to get a take on who Giorno is, and reporters who have known him for some time are helping.  Richard Brennan is one such reporter, and he calls Giorno very bright, a neocon, and socially challenged.

Socially challenged?  Where did that come from?  Does Richard Brennan think Guy Giorno is applying to be a cruise director on the Pacific Princess?

Actually, there is a bit of history behind this.

Is David Smith rewriting history concerning Joan Beatty in order to protect Stephane Dion?

The Liberal nomination for the riding of Desnethe-Missinippi-Churchill River is wide open.  David Orchard and Joan Beatty are both fighting to the chance to represent the Liberal Party.

It'll be interesting to see how that nomination race proceeds.

But I find it also interesting to see how studiously the Liberal Party is avoiding making too much of the fact that Stephane Dion's meddling played a key role in how the by-election played out on March 17.  Now, instead of Stephane Dion making a gutsy leadership decision (as was explained before the by-election loss), we hear that Stephane Dion was compelled to appoint the nominee because of a "tight timeline".

I guess anything that absolves Stephane Dion of responsibility.

Garth Turner and caucus confidentiality

I'm just sharing some thoughts about the implications of breaking Liberal Party caucus confidentiality with regards to Garth Turner.  Was it just gossip, or part of a plan?

Tuna, beer, popcorn -- next comes the carbon tax

It occurs to me that the carbon tax is a very dangerous policy to propose.  Not just because it'll wreck the economy and accomplish nothing whatsoever.  But because trying to sell it is going to be so hard.  Already we see hints of how defending the carbon tax is likely going to cause someone to trip up and say something really, really, stupid.

Jane Taber's weasel report on Garth Turner

Last Friday, a report by Jane Taber on Mike Duffy Live spawned some off-the-wall rumours about Liberal MP Garth Turner being run out of caucus.

As far as we know, Garth Turner continues to sit with the Liberal Party, but the actual report is a case study in knowing where to draw the line.

Real life is not a blog.

Does David Suzuki advocate exempting industry from the Liberal carbon tax?

The NDP does not like the Liberal plan for a carbon tax.  For the NDP, the problem is with charging both industry and individuals -- the NDP thinks industrial polluters should pay.

Piffle, says David Suzuki.  The Swedes have a robust carbon tax in comparison to what the Liberals are proposing. 

Interesting example.  The NDP would prefer a carbon tax that targets industry.  David Suzuki, on the other hand, is impressed with the Swedish system that exempts industry from paying the full tax, and only requires that the full tax be paid by individuals.

What?  You didn't know that?  I guess David Suzuki forgot to mention it.

Will housing prices to take a beating under the Liberal carbon tax regime?

Will a carbon tax blast housing values?

The Garth Tape [and an apology offered]

Garth Turner has caught a bit of a break.  Apparently there were two reporters at the event in which he allegedly described Canadian artillery as being solely for the purpose of destroying villages.

If we take his transcription of the tape at face value, and I have no reason to assume it isn't accurate, his comments were...well...not much different than what has been discussed already.

Cadman controversy is dead, but the Liberals uncover evidence of criminal activity

In a stunning turnaround, the Liberal Party has announced the discovery of evidence to support allegations that the Conservatives tried to bribe Chuck Cadman.  This despite today's announcement by the RCMP that the case was closed.

Garth Turner says he meant blowing up Taliban villages only (or something like that)

Liberal MP Garth Turner is in a bit of a bind.  He was quoted in a local paper as saying that the Canadian military buys artillery shells whose "sole purpose" was to destroy Afghan villages.

I called him out on that.  He wrote a post that suggested that he was misquoted.  I got in touch with the paper and the editor was adamant that the quote was accurate. 

Garth Turner seems to have largely abandoned that defense.  Now he says Afghan villages in Taliban-controlled territory are the ones being blown up.

Or something to that effect.  Really, it's not clear at all what he means.

How is that better?

Canada is right to avoid bogus "right to food" meeting

With all the other news, the fact that Canada is not supporting an attempt by the United Nations' Human Rights Council to hold an emergency "right to food" meeting has not been widely noticed.

Right to food?

Accurately quoting Garth Turner

In the tempest brewing over Garth Turner's comments that the Canadian military purchases weapons whose only purpose is to destroy villages in Afghanistan, Garth Turner raised the possibility that he was misquoted.

He doesn't actually say he was misquoted, nor provide a different recollection of the comments he made.

I hate ambiguity, so I contacted the paper in question to get their side of this particular issue.

Is the Liberal Party issuing tax receipts covering the personal expenses of Liberal Senators?

The Liberals in the Senate have a caucus fund.  Basically, it's petty cash. Senators contribute a hundred bucks or so to the fund, and the money is used to pay for food and other incidentals related to partisan caucus activities.

The Conservatives have a similar fund.

Notice that this money does not go to the Liberal Party.  It has nothing to do with electioneering or leadership debts or nomination fights or whatever.

So why does it seem like the Liberal Party is issuing donation receipts for Liberal Senators kicking money into the fund, presumably so that Liberal Senators can take advantage of the tax credit normally given to people who've donated to a political party?

Garth Turner accuses Canadian military of pursuing the destruction of Afghan villages [Updated...again...and again]

Liberal MP Garth Turner had an interesting comment about the Canadian military and the strategy being pursued in Afghanistan.  Apparently wiping out villages with artillery attacks is our main mission. 

Carbon tax issue evidence of Stephane Dion's growing problems inside the Liberal Party

After all the talk about a carbon tax, my mind keeps coming back to the same thing.  Why are we talking about it at all?  I mean, The Liberal Party has not released any details.  But by allowing the Conservatives to know ahead of time that an announcement concerning a carbon tax is in the very near future, the Conservatives have been able to frame the issue.

You would think Liberals would have learned that by now.

The story was apparently leaked.  But I thought that maybe, just maybe, the Liberals were being clever.  Perhaps this was a trial balloon.

Then I looked at it again, and realized there is no way this could be a trial balloon.  It was a leak, plain and simple.  Worse, it was designed to hurt Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion.  Worse still, the leak came from an Ontario Liberal, and not a Quebec Liberal, which means Stephane Dion seems to be no closer to solving his leadership problems, and indeed his problems might be growing.

Missing comments mystery solved

I've figured out why some comments seemed to disappear, or why some seemed to appear on the recent comments list, but weren't seen on the blog post.  I had inadvertently created two comment streams per post.

Now only one stream exists per post.

A 1993 analysis of consumption taxes done for the Liberal Party

Ever wonder why a consumption tax (like a carbon tax) is politically unpopular compared to a sales tax (like the GST)?

The Liberals under Jean Chretien wondered that in 1993 when they took over from the Progressive Conservatives.  Jean Chretien had promised to eliminate the GST, but of course, he didn't.  Different alternatives to the GST are discussed in this report.  It is very interesting to note what the researcher had to say about consumption taxes, and it helps understand why we still have the GST.

Of course, under a government led by Stephane Dion, we would get the worst of both worlds.

The carbon tax and the cost of gas

Stephane Dion's carbon tax is not a gas tax, or so members of the Liberal Party are supposed to say.  Too bad not all the Liberals got the memo.

Stephane Dion's carbon tax will succeed

I haven't written about Stephane Dion's carbon tax idea, not since it was announced that he intended to make a carbon tax a cornerstone of a Liberal Party platform in the next election.

I wanted my thoughts to gel, to consider just what such a tax could do, good and bad.  I'm glad I waited, because as I began to peal away the layers, I realized that a carbon tax is really unlike any tax every imposed by a government.  It is guaranteed to succeed.

Victory Fund to replace the ChequeMate Plan?

The Ontario wing of the federal Liberal Party had a monthly donation program called ChequeMate.  It appears that the new central party program, the Victory Fund, is displacing it.  It isn't clear if donors are being migrated to the new scheme.

Quietly migrating long-established ChequeMate Plan members to the Victory Fund would certainly make the Victory Fund look like an early success.

Gilles Duceppe getting his cue during a scrum

An unnamed source has provided me with some details into what immediately triggered the media's interest in the Maxime Bernier story. 

It is very strange.  It's like the cue to start the attack came during a media scrum.

Did Lawrence Cannon suggest that Gilles Duceppe threatened the media?

The story behind the story of Maxime Bernier's former girlfriend is a lot more interesting (though perhaps less salacious) than the story itself, that being demands from the opposition that Bernier resign over the fact that his former girlfriend was once married to a notorious Quebec biker.

Apparently, the media did not break this story.  The media had known about it for some time, but realized there was nothing to it, since Julie Couillard had long since been cleared of any suspicion regarding the criminal activities of her former husband.  So why did the story break?  Because the opposition Liberals and Bloc Quebecois pushed it and pushed it hard.

Of course, you'd never know it, based on their surprised expression over the "revelations".

And yet, there are hints that people know what is going on.

The real story behind Maxime Bernier and Julie Couillard

In what has been and under-reported element to the Maxime Bernier story, we learn that the controversy over Maxime Bernier's girlfriend, Julie Couillard, was of no interest whatsoever to the press.  The opposition lobbied to have the story published by a unimpressed media corps.

Victory Fund includes Central Nova, where no Liberal is running

With the launch of the Liberal Party's Victory Fund, the Liberals hope to re-energize their fundraising ahead of the next election.

In that election, the Liberals will be running 307 candidates, taking a pass on the riding of Central Nova.  Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion and Green Party leader Elizabeth May entered into a pact.  The Liberals would not run a candidate in Central Nova (where May is running) and in return, the Green Party would not run a candidate in Saint-Laurent--Cartierville (where Dion is running).

So why would the Victory Fund, which aims at raising funds to defeat the Conservatives in the next election, explicitly raise funds for the Liberals in Central Nova?

Liberals launch Victory Fund with a shocking admission

For months now, the Liberal have been saying that they are ready to fight an election.  Lack of funds?  Not a problem, they said.  The party could spend up to the limit.  Just say go!

Well, apparently it is a problem, after all.

CAIRS not a tool for openness

Elizabeth Thompson has written a piece on her blog that puts the CAIRS database question into perspective.

Despite the moaning from the opposition, shutting down the CAIRS database is not about secrecy.  CAIR was never about openness.  It was always about making it easier for the government to limit access to information.

Liberal Party fundraising implodes

Is this another reason why Stephane Dion is not eager to fight an election?

Stephane Dion poised to infuriate Liberals

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion is about to make a decision that is going to infuriate Liberals everywhere.

Angry in the Great White North by Steve Janke is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Canada License. Based on a work at stevejanke.com.