O’Toole has a tough job ahead selling the Conservative climate plan
By Lethbridge Herald Opinion on April 24, 2021.
The federal Conservatives have expended copious breath of late in attempting to convince Canadians that their new “not-a-carbon-tax” climate plan is the solution all conservative voters should opt for in the next election. Conservative leader Erin O’Toole even takes it one step further: Canadians from across the political spectrum should be attracted to the CPC’s new vision.
To be fair, the Conservatives have outlined their plan rather cleverly, proposing a “levy” on fuel purchases while dumping the money raised into personal savings accounts to be used for environmentally-friendly purchases. It would give the perception – rightly or wrongly – that government isn’t reaching into the pockets of Canadians to line their own.
While we should be used to pie-in-the-sky pronouncements from our federal leadership by now – it is, after all, politics we’re talking about here – in reality O’Toole’s new climate plan probably won’t be universally loved or endorsed by all Canadians.
In fact, rather than devoted adulation O’Toole may have his work cut out for him in simply securing the goodwill of some of the more radical elements of his own party, much less politically unaligned Canadians (if such mythical creatures still exist in Canada).
Such considerations have been central to the political balancing act that is big-tent conservative politics at the federal level in Canada.
Endless party debate over the years has coalesced around one fundamental truth: that conservative voters in Canada are not all a faceless, homogenous group with closely aligned right-of-center political opinions.
In short, today’s Tory blue is actually a kaleidoscope of shades that reflect where various internal factions actually rest on the spectrum. And many on the inside have far more radical views than the more pragmatic, centrist vision the party and O’Toole wish to present to the greater public.
Therein lies the problem. Trying to please these elements in the party while simultaneously attempting to convince the wider electorate that the Conservatives are not a radical organization has been difficult for the CPC in the years since the merger of the PC and Alliance parties. And fractures have already begun to appear, embodied in the most recent federal election with the defection of Maxime Bernier and his People’s Party of Canada.
More fractures and spin-offs on the right is really the nightmare scenario for the CPC, the very thing the party originally wished to prevent.
This must be a revelation that most conservative voters are dimly aware of, that a divided right spells electoral disaster in Canada.
So internal displeasure over O’Toole’s plan is only more evidence that the CPC membership isn’t very “united” over environmental policy. Hard to sell that vision to voters when there are members of your own party don’t appear to be very enthusiastic about major platform promises.
To say nothing of what internal disunity means to a voter contemplating whether a party and leader is actually ready to govern.
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The article said, “To be fair, the Conservatives have outlined their plan rather cleverly, proposing a “levy” on fuel purchases while dumping the money raised into personal savings accounts to be used for environmentally-friendly purchases. It would give the perception – rightly or wrongly – that government isn’t reaching into the pockets of Canadians to line their own.”.
–facepalm– Ya, because the NDP and LIBS wouldn’t/aren’t doing the same thing.
The people cry, “We need a carbon tax to mitigate CO2 and make corporations pay!”
Uh huh….
Thing is, the corporations won’t pay the tax…all of us peasants will. The corporations will pass that cost down to us. So not only are WE going to be paying more for various goods and services with the peasant carbon tax, but we will be paying the corporation’s carbon tax as well! BUT WAIT, there’s more! To add insult to injury, all that money the government and corporations will be taking from us? Well, it will do nothing to reduce pollution, let alone CO2. Go team!
…and this notion that “the rebates will make up for the extra carbon tax you’ll pay” is laughably stupid. –insert the proverbial bridge to sell you–.
Never mind that the measly rebate won’t even come close to the extra amount you’re going to pay in carbon taxes, but the carbon tax will only increase, and it won’t surprise me in the least if the rebate gets frozen, or completely removed.
To add to the carbon tax is the billions that will have to be payed backed for throwing millions of people out of work. In other words, were going to see “poverty” skyrocket as the government raises obvious and hidden taxes, and keeps increasing the carbon tax.
This:
“The Conservative Roots of Carbon Pricing”
http://www.nationalaffairs.com/commentary/opinions/detail/the-conservative-roots-of-carbon-pricing
Even Preston Manning has encouraged right wing Canadian leaders to stop dissing carbon pricing. So, it remains as to what anti-carbon tax right wing supporters will do…..start a different political party?
Another aspect of carbon pricing worth researching is Sweden’s experience. They have carbon pricing on certain greenhouse gas emissions (over 30 years) with decrease in emissions as a result and steady economic growth…imagine that eh?!
In our backwards, archaic, vote buying political system, it would be stupid for any Federal political party not to introduce a carbon tax. See what I did there? If they didn’t introduce a carbon tax, the environmentalists would be screaming, “This party doesn’t care about the earth!”, “Climate deniers!”, “baby whale killers!”. lol
Furthermore, what Sweden does is irrelevant to what is occurring in Canada. However, to prove your assertion that Sweden reduced emissions via a carbon tax, you must first prove that any other tactics, etc, that Sweden employed in the last 30 years to reduce emissions wasn’t responsible for the emission reduction. Even if you could do that, you would then have to show exactly and unequivocally, how a carbon tax reduced emissions (with provable examples).
In other words, correlation does not imply causation.
O’Toole’s carbon levy? What a horse laugh….other words for carbon tax. The silence on this by the Kenney UCP, is, deafening. Imagine, trying to twist and turn on this to try to get votes.