In the blink of an eye, the much-maligned carbon tax, the bane of conservative politicians across the country finally ended last week, just like United Conservative Party candidates told us would happen if they formed government throughout the spring election campaign … the catch is, the federal government is working expeditiously to replace it, post-haste.
At the very least, we should give credit to politicians for doing what they said they were going to do. Whether it was a wise decision or not, is still up for debate.
When we talked to MLA Glenn van Dijken for our story on the subject last week we asked him about the federal tax and he said they’d be putting their own plan forward that would hopefully fit within the fed’s framework. If that plan is rejected by the feds, the province is prepared to go to court.
The plan, as far as we can tell, is to keep a tax on large carbon emitters (100,000 tonnes per year), but drop it from 30 to 20 per cent and spend the money on emissions-reducing technologies.
Any predictions as to how that is going to go over with the feds?
One could argue it is nothing more than an ideological ploy to frame the October election as a fight against those dastardly Liberals and their persistent meddling in provincial affairs. It’s just a fight for the sake of a fight. It’s meant to divide. The whole scenario has Stephen Harper’s fingerprints all over it, frankly.
Why would they want to go to court?
A recent Saskatchewan court decision found the federal government was constitutionally within its jurisdiction to impose a carbon tax on a province, so the precedent is not in Alberta’s favour and the federal government is not likely to back down. Yet, they persist.
Many economists, even traditionally conservative economists, like Harper, have argued in favour of a carbon tax as a logical, market-driven response to climate change. In 2008, Conservatives even campaigned to “develop and implement a North American-wide cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases and air pollution, with implementation to occur between 2012 and 2015.”
Obviously that never happened. So what changed?
Politics is about priorities and the fact that environment has never been a high priority to conservatives is no secret. It may be written into their platforms, but judging by their actions, it’s not a significant concern, and it should be.