Angry in the Great White North

Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion wants to fight the next election with a carbon tax as the central plank in the Liberal Party platform.

Is it possible that Liberal candidates figure that a carbon tax an election-losing idea and are abandoning ship?

Robert Morrissey’s surprise resignation as the Liberal candidate in Egmont continues to cause political waves  in Prince Edward Island and in the nation’s capital in Ottawa.

The Conservatives are tying the resignation to Liberal Leader Stephane Dion’s Green Shift plan while the Liberals are in damage control, trying to assure Island voters that Morrissey resigned to pursue new opportunities in the private sector.

Egmont MP Joe McGuire, whose resignation prompted the opening in the western P.E.I. riding, says Morrissey never expressed concerns about the Green Shift plan.

Never expressing concern is hardly the same as being supportive.

That's not to say that Morrissey didn't have concerns.  But in February 2008, Morrissey expressed concern that oil prices were too high:

The fact that many Islanders are having difficulty paying the increased cost of home-heating fuel this winter has been rightfully highlighted in the news.

But the cost of fuel oil is just one of the basic living expenses that some people are having trouble paying. The fact that the price of oil has risen so dramatically is a cause for concern.

OK, that was in February when oil was selling at just around $100 a barrel.  Robert Morrissey was complaining then.  Now oil is hovering at $120 or more, and Stephane Dion wants Robert Morrissey to go to these people, and tell them that them they still aren't paying enough for oil?  That indeed it has been too easy for them to pay for oil at $120 a barrel?  In fact, they're using too much oil and that the only way they'll stop being so irresponsible is to have the price of oil jacked up by the government, a government that will send their money to Ontario where the votes are?

So Robert Morrissey will have to tell them that although he originally thought oil at $100 a barrel was too much of a hardship for the people of Egmont, he has changed his mind thanks to Stephane Dion, the high price of oil is a good thing, that the Liberals will make it even higher, but that they'll get some fraction of that massive increase back...if they qualify.

Frankly, when I first read this connection between the carbon tax and these resignations, I thought it a tenuous connection.  It's possible that the carbon tax platform prompted the resignations, but then again, maybe not.  Possible, maybe even plausible, but it would be nice to have some evidence.

In the case of Robert Morrissey, that evidence might be on this web page on his now defunct website.  Robert Morrissey came out clearly on the side of not raising the price of oil.  Morrissey had that page up as recently as July, well after Stephane Dion announced his carbon tax plan to deliberately raise the price of oil.

Perhaps Robert Morrissey figured he couldn't sell the plan, even with the alleged tax breaks and special rebates.  And maybe he thought the carbon tax was just a lousy idea.

Update: If Morrissey really bailed because of Stephane Dion's carbon tax, then this is a big deal, because Egmont is a very safe Liberal seat.  The Liberals have won this seat with 50% or more of the votes case in every election since 1990.  Robert Morrissey ought to have been able to walk away with this seat. 

Unless he thought the carbon tax was poison even in a Liberal stronghold.

Like I said, the implications are significant.