At the time of this writing, the fallout from the Trudeau government's unilaterally imposed carbon tax is still spreading throughout the Twitter-news-commentary sphere.
You can bet your pumpkins that interns at Langevin are busily monitoring the whole situation to help craft talking points and rebuttals for their own government and some premiers are looking at their "in case of emergency, threaten to break confederation" options more frequently than ever.
I had planned to begin a short series assessing the Trudeau government's first year in power, starting by reiterating the mandate the federal Liberals proposed during the election as compared to the actual results achieved. All this would have included commentary on our dear leader himself as well as his merry band of cabineteers. However, a much simpler way of explaining our government and its failings fell into my lap this week with the carbon tax fumble.
Canada certainly is back - back to an abusive, Stockholm syndrome relationship with yet another Trudeau. Like his father, he has no respect for our constitutional history or the jurisprudence that would advise more cautious actions. In line with the post-Pearson Canada we currently live in, provinces that are expendable to Liberal electoral success are treated as chattel to be ignored when the R. Hon. pleases.
Because it's 2016, I suppose it's just dandy that the oil and gas sectors will suffer yet another blow after a dismal two-year downturn. As we go around the table this coming weekend, perhaps we can all say how thankful we are for a government that is determined to "bring Canada into the 21st century" regardless of the democratic or economic consequences of that agenda. I'm especially thankful for the debt my yet-to-be-born children will inherit, because it's 2066.
All jokes aside about the abyss we find ourselves in as a country, there are serious economic and political consequences to the course that has been taken by the Trudeau Liberals over the last 12 months. And they culminated in the tragic tableau that manifested with the official announcement of a carbon tax for 2018, starting at ten dollars a ton.
Trudeau promised his government would be different from Harper's, most notably through consultation and "government by cabinet." A carbon plan was not to be implemented until premiers had signed on and helped craft it. And given the importance of the plan, wouldn't it make sense to let the federal environment minister tweak the plan freely, as a truly autonomous cabinet minister ought to be able to do?
Instead, while ministers were meeting to discuss environment issues, the carbon tax was officially announced - not too dissimilarly from the time Trudeau gathered and dismissed all Liberal Senators without any warning.
One can imagine that many red phones went off almost simultaneously and, in response, several provinces have pulled their environment ministers from said conference. That sounds like the definition of a hostile and dysfunctional work environment.
This is not the behavior that the people, advocacy groups, and provinces were promised last year as Mr. Sunny Ways jetted all over to gather support. Whether it's First Nations who feel more ignored than they ever did with Harper, whether it's people being told their thoughts will affect how the new electoral process will function when it obviously won't, or whether it's provincial leaders being patronized by a distant, untried prime minister, this is not good government.
I began by hinting this newest tax would trigger a constitutional crisis, and it is my sincere belief as well as hope that it will.
This country deserves better of its federal government - its deserved better for decades. If elections can't fix it, maybe premiers and justices can sink it.
