Angry in the Great White North

On the weekend, the Conservatives launched their strike on Stephane Dion's carbon tax plan.

What plan?  That's the problem.  Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion said there would be a carbon tax if he become prime minister, and let that hang there for weeks.  So, of course, everyone is taking turns defining it for Stephane Dion.

On June 9, Liberal MP Garth Turner appeared on Mike Duffy Live.  Responding to Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro's remarks on what a carbon tax would mean to Canadians, Garth Turner said the following, first referring to Del Mastro, then to Duffy:

He doesn't actually know what he's talking about, because he hasn't seen the details, nor have you.  I have.

So there are details?  So Garth Turner's comment means we're going to hear about Stephane Dion in short order?

Well, there are details and then there are details.

Perhaps Garth Turner is certain that the plan will be printed on 8-1/2 by 11 sheets of paper.  Because the report is that there is little settled about Stephane Dion's carbon tax plan:

[There] is still debate over other details, says the [Liberal Party] source. Caucus members are asking why it should apply "across the board," as sources have suggested it will. Some are asking why it won't just be applied to the large oil companies.

In addition, there are queries as to why the leader does not announce a cap-and-trade system at the same time. Liberal sources, however, have said Mr. Dion does not want to talk about a cap-and-trade plan "in this round" of his environmental piece.

Another veteran Liberal official says there are concerns, too, as to how the Dion plan would address the situations in British Columbia and Quebec, provinces that already have a carbon tax.

"The problem is there are so many unanswered questions," says the veteran Liberal. "What do you do with British Columbia? Are you going to walk in and take it over? Are you going to get into a spat with the Premier? Are you going to put an extra tax on it? Or you're not taxing enough so we're going to hit you with more.

"How do you deal with those? They don't know. They don't have a clue."

Some many unanswered questions?  Clueless Liberals unable to answer them?

Details?  What details?

That would explain why, besides Garth Turner, of course, no Liberal is willing to say that the plan is ready to go:

Indeed, there seem to have been many false starts to the launch of the plan. The latest word from insiders was that it was to be launched this week but it was delayed again, perhaps until next week or the week after.

"It was supposed to be this week," said one senior Liberal insider. "It's been put off. It may be next week, but there is enough resistance around some aspects that they [the Liberal Leader's officials] are going to push it back."

Maybe next week.  Maybe the week after.  Maybe July.  However long it takes for the clueless Liberals to actually come up with a carbon tax plan that does the impossible:

• Save the entire planet by making fuel consumption prohibitively expensive for Canadians, except, oddly enough, gasoline.  Though who can afford gas when everything else spikes in price.
• Throw all the money back to Canadians who are paying the tax, except for the money that is needed to administer the tax, and the money earmarked for vulnerable Canadians, and money needed to pay for billions in new Liberal government programs.
• Set a new lower income tax rate and make it a permanent change, until the next time the income tax rate is raised (for an entirely unrelated reason, of course -- the cut to compensate for the carbon tax was permanent).

Is the report wrong?  Are there enough details, all divulged to Garth Turner, that the carbon tax plan is just about ready to go? 

Well, Garth Turner certainly doesn't trust the report from the Globe and Mail's Jane Taber, regardless of how many senior Liberals she is quoting:

Weasel woman strikes again. Fiction-writer of the year. — Garth

Fiction writer?  Is that the same as calling Jane Taber a liar?

Right then.  I guess we'll know for certain when the carbon tax is unveiled tomorrow.

In the meantime, I suffer because I have been writing about the carbon tax:

Angry Con bloggers fomented and frothed, and saw their hits leave town.

I don't actually track hits all that closely.  I just write and people read, and I'm happy.  But since Garth Turner seems to have an insight into my traffic and has noted that it has collapsed, I checked Google Analytics. Here are the traffic numbers from this week as compared to last week, starting with the day before the Tories launched the ad campaign on June 8:

May 31: 740 visitors
June 7: 760 visitors
Difference: 2.7%

June 1: 751 visitors
June 8: 922 visitors
Difference: 22.8%

June 2: 1208 visitors
June 9: 1405 visitors
Difference: 16.3%

June 3: 1088 visitors
June 10: 1259 visitors
Difference: 15.7%

Funny how Garth Turner thinks he has details about my blog traffic, and got it completely wrong.  Perhaps these details are coming from the same imaginary place as the details he claims to have of Stephane Dion's carbon tax grab.