It has been said politics is a blood sport.
I am not talking about the spectacle unfolding south of the border. The U.S. election has moved well past sport and is now in the realm of a tragic comedy worthy of Shakespeare.
I am talking about politics as a whole. It is a riveting spectacle. Watching our leaders parry and thrust, the parties manoeuvring themselves into position to pounce, the backbenchers throwing our trial balloons - it is a show like no other. It certainly beats out reality television.
Occasionally, there are some real shockers, too.
This past week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dropped one when he announced a national carbon tax. The reaction was swift and almost predictable.
B.C. Premier Christy Clark played the part of the Cheshire cat with a wide grin and a "what took you so long approach." Certainly, our fair province has been a leader on this issue.
Many economists around the world have been watching to see the effect of imposing a carbon tax on our economy. So far, their analysis seems to back the tax as a way of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
However, Premier Clark has said her government won't be increasing the carbon tax any time soon and when it does, it will be "revenue neutral."
(I am still trying to understand the concept of "revenue neutral" for a government. I mean, shouldn't all government taxation be revenue neutral? They collect money from a variety of sources not to make a profit but to put that money back out in the form of goods and services for the benefit of the taxpayer. Collecting a tax on carbon dioxide and using the funds for other government goals is no different than, say, collecting income tax or money from the B.C. Lottery Corporation.)
B.C. has had a carbon tax for a number of years and the federal plan really won't affect us until 2021 when the price will need to shift to $40/tonne according to the federal plan. However, as that amounts to only 9.32 cents per litre of gasoline or an increase of only
2.32 cents over our present pricing, it will likely not even be noticed.
After all, the price of gasoline in Prince George bounces up and down on a weekly basis by as much as 15 cents. While a two-cent increase is annoying, it is not likely to alter anyone's driving behaviour. Which kind of defeats the purpose of imposing carbon taxes in the first place. The idea behind a carbon tax is that by pricing carbon dioxide emissions, it will signal a shift in the market and drive people away from using carbon intensive products - particularly gasoline.
However, as the error margin for buying gasoline - the daily or weekly fluctuation in the price - is more than the carbon tax, a national carbon tax will only have minimal impact on overall fossil fuel consumption.
The other provinces also played their respective parts in this political drama. Saskatchewan's Premier Brad Wall was deeply critical of the national carbon tax approach.
He went so far as to call it the "National Energy Program 2.0" in a reference to the prime minister's father.
Talking during Question Period on CBC, Premier Wall did make a salient point when he said "If she's (federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna) saying 'Look, we're going to levy this carbon tax anyway, give you the money and you can just pay it back to all of these same sectors - oil and gas, agriculture, manufacturing, and mining,' then what is the point?"
The counter-argument is it will change people's awareness of the cost of a carbon-based economy. By pricing carbon at the consumer level it may result in behavioural changes in favour of low carbon alternatives.
However, it does seem as though the whole exercise will be taking with one hand and handing it back with the other.
Alberta's Premier Rachel Notley had a slightly different approach, welcoming the scheme for a national carbon tax. She favoured a nation-wide level playing field and her government is set to impose a carbon tax similar to B.C.'s.
But she did add the caveat that she expected any national approach would come with access to tidewater for Alberta's crude oil. As a landlocked province, Alberta is suffering in the global market as they try to export to countries around the world.
In the end, the federal Liberals will have their way. A national carbon tax is pretty much a done deal, despite the threat of court action by some of the provinces. And it will be touted as the beginning of real movement by the federal government on climate change.
Unfortunately, the latter will only really be true if the money is used to advance research and development on ways to change our economy to low carbon.
