‘It always gives you more than one opportunity to prevail’

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 17, 2011 at 1:28 PM - 4 Comments

Stephane Dion accepts the 2011 Couchiching Award for Leadership in Public Policy.

Reading Couchiching President Gwen Burrows’s good-news letter, the first thought that crossed my mind was how fortunate we are, in a democracy such as Canada, to be allowed to fight for our convictions, safe from any political system threat to our freedom and wellbeing.

How fortunate to be free to accept an award from an independent and non-partisan institution, an institution shaped by a diversity of people – Liberals like me, but also others – Conservatives, New Democrats, Greens…!  Men and women who might not have voted for me or supported my policies, but who give me credit for having fought for my ideas, my ideals and my fellow human beings. It is institutions like this that make Canada a better democracy.

Democracy.  That is the theme that underlies my address today.  You have been kind enough to say that I have showed leadership.  What I know for sure is that whatever leadership I might have shown was inspired by the democratic ideal, an ideal that pushed me to fight for a united Canada, a better Canada. 

The Mintz conundrum

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, May 1, 2011 at 12:14 PM - 39 Comments

Andrew Mayeda reviews the state of play on environmental policy.

The Conservative figure of a 10-cent-per-litre increase is based on an estimate by University of Calgary economist Jack Mintz … The Conservatives often cite Mintz’s work to bolster their case for various policies, including corporate tax cuts. But like many economists, such as former U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker and Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, Mintz believes a carbon tax levied broadly across the economy would be a more efficient way of pricing carbon than putting caps on industrial emitters.

This year's fear

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 29, 2011 at 12:36 PM - 34 Comments

With Jack Layton having recently surpassed Michael Ignatieff as the greatest threat to everything you hold dear, Stephen Harper has adjusted his concern. Chief among his worries: the NDP’s stated intention of pursuing a cap-and-trade system.

Demanding that we bring in cap-and-trade schemes that generate tens of billions of dollars in revenue. That’s the carbon tax. I do not do these things, even though I am a minority, because I know they will wreak enormous havoc on the Canadian economy. So, look, I will work with people and will make compromises. But we’re not going to make compromises on things we actually think will hurt the country.

During the 2008 election, a carbon tax was, of course, what Mr. Harper said would “screw everybody.” Cap-and-trade was, of course, what Mr. Harper proposed shortly thereafter and what the government’s own website still describes as an option.

This year's national unity crisis

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, April 17, 2011 at 6:38 PM - 98 Comments

Stephen Harper, 2008. The Liberals’ carbon tax plan will plunge Canada into recession, sparking economic unrest that will revive Quebec’s separatist movement, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says. Harper revived the ghosts of regional divisions today as he painted the Liberals’ greenhouse gas strategy as a costly folly whose impacts will reach far beyond the country’s economy. ”By undermining the economy and re-centralizing money and power in Ottawa, it can only undermine the progress that we have been making on national unity,” Harper told a breakfast audience this morning.

Stephen Harper, 2011. Stephen Harper urged voters Sunday to elect a Conservative majority government as the best defence against a renewed drive by Quebec separatists to break up the country … “He has said that they are moving towards, they are walking towards his objective — the sovereignty of Quebec and another Quebec referendum,” Mr. Harper said of Mr. Duceppe. “And he says step one to achieve that is to stop a federal Conservative majority government in Ottawa. Step one is to weaken the country, have a weak government in Ottawa, and that is another reason why Canadians, we believe, must choose a strong, stable, national Conservative government.”

From the magazine

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 1:09 PM - 55 Comments

I spent last Sunday hanging around with Stephane Dion. Here is what that was like.

If you’re interested in a director’s cut, full of never-before-seen material, see below.

You can add this as a post-script to what I wrote the night of the 2008 election.

Continue…

The Commons: Rendered moot

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 22, 2011 at 9:25 PM - 73 Comments

To Jack Layton’s credit, he waited for the Finance Minister to finish. Only after Jim Flaherty had tabled the federal budget in the House of Commons and concluded with his half hour explanation of such, did Mr. Layton hobble into the foyer with the assistance of a cane and render it all more or less moot.

Around a podium, a small mosh pit of cameras and microphones and people with press credentials had surrounded a portable podium to hear what the NDP leader might say. Looking indisputably pale, Mr. Layton squeezed through the crowd to his appointed spot. He recounted first how he had spoken with the Prime Minister a month earlier and for a moment it seemed he was about to claim victory, to proclaim the government’s concession of “practical solutions” he’s quite fond of talking about. And then that narrative turned. Continue…

'Sensible, pragmatic, courageous'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, March 15, 2011 at 2:47 PM - 31 Comments

Scott Brison considers British Columbia’s carbon tax.

“If you look at Campbell’s government in terms of tax policy and carbon tax, he was a centrist,” Brison said during a one-hour interview with The Province editorial board. “A carbon tax is not a left-wing or a right-wing policy, it’s simply a sensible, pragmatic, courageous [policy],” adding it also was “a risky idea” politically.

Here is the official explanation of that carbon tax.

'I understand but I don't care'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, February 28, 2011 at 11:48 AM - 42 Comments

Mike Moffatt concludes a post on carbon taxation with a new resolution.

I am quite certain the response to this post will be a litany of political reasons why the Liberals and Conservatives cannot propose sensible policies.  I understand but I don’t care. My hope is that if enough of us keep advocating sensible public policy it may become popular enough to become politically feasible.  I want to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem.

What if the United States ends up with a carbon tax?

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 19, 2010 at 1:24 PM - 50 Comments

The American and Canadian administrations are apparently in agreement that the two countries need to harmonize their carbon pricing schemes, but what if, as the likes of Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, Kevin Drum and Michael Bloomberg have argued this week, the United States ends up pursuing a carbon tax? Klein says it’s might be the best option.

At this point, the politics of climate change are dismal. But the reality of the budget situation makes new taxes inevitable. Among the few promising routes left for climate hawks is convincing the political system that if we need more taxes, a carbon tax makes more sense than a VAT. Because we will need more taxes. Perhaps the fiscal crunch can do what climate science could not.

Recall here that, despite his warnings that a carbon tax would both “screw everybody” and possibly unravel the country during the 2008 election, the Prime Minister did not entirely dismiss the possibility of such a policy when asked about harmonizing environmental agendas with the United States during 2009 interview.

Somewhere Stephane Dion nods quietly

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 12:35 PM - 0 Comments

Bjorn Lomborg, not a leader.

The world’s most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is “undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today” and “a challenge humanity must confront”, in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby…

In a Guardian interview, he said he would finance investment through a tax on carbon emissions that would also raise $50bn to mitigate the effect of climate change, for example by building better sea defences, and $100bn for global healthcare.

What happened and why (III)

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, June 11, 2010 at 2:28 PM - 12 Comments

From the CES survey, the stuff of Stephane Dion’s nightmares.

The Liberal Party’s Green Shift will really hurt the Canadian economy.
Strongly agree 16.8%
Somewhat agree 22.9%
Somewhat disagree 26.0%
Strongly disagree 13.4%
Don’t know 20.0%

The Liberal Party’s carbon tax will really hurt the Canadian economy.
Strongly agree 28.3%
Somewhat agree 25.2%
Somewhat disagree 17.9%
Strongly disagree 11.9%
Don’t know 16.1%

Proactive disclosure

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 12:50 PM - 24 Comments

Stephen Gordon has put together a valuable primer ahead of what probably should be a national discussion on taxes and the federal treasury.

Now, I’m as happy as the next person – okay, probably happier than the next person – to talk about corporate income tax policy. What worries me is that the quality of public debate on this topic is likely to be no better than that of the climate change file in the last election. For pretty much the entire 2008 campaign, reporting on climate change policy  – with all-too-rare exceptions – took the form of he-said-she-said, opinions-differ-on-the-shape-of-the-earth stories that made no reference to the scholarly literature. By the time academic economists intervened with this open letter a week before the election, it was too late: the damage had already been done.

Searching for the Liberal Party. Day 3.

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, March 28, 2010 at 8:38 AM - 96 Comments

Greetings from Montreal, where, for the next three days, we’ll be hanging around the Liberal party’s Canada 150 conference. Herein a running diary of the proceedings. Day 1’s diary is here. Day 2 is here.

8:33am. Good morning again. The lights are now blue and the subject is The World. Up first is Robert Fowler, the former Canadian diplomat who spent a few months in 2009 as a hostage in Niger. Mr. Ignatieff is briefing his caucus by phone at noon and is then due to speak here at 2:30pm, with a press conference to follow.

8:39am. I arrived at about 8:15am and the tables reserved for media were empty except for three bloggers. Bloggers are like journalists who’ve not yet lost the ability to be genuinely interested in things.

8:42am. Liberal partisan John Mraz argues, quite rightly, that one shouldn’t make too much of yesterday’s carbon tax discussion. Indeed, he says pinning the policy on the Liberal party now would be “somewhat akin to having held Stephen Harper to account for the maddeningly hateful babblings of Ann Coulter.” Unfortunately, the Liberals tried to do exactly that last week.

8:48am. Mr. Fowler is here, officially, to speak about Africa, but he is now spanking the Liberal party. “I believe that the Liberal party has lost its way … and is in danger of losing its soul.” The Liberals don’t stand for principle, they stand for anything that will return them to power. “It’s all about getting to power and it shows.” He applauds this conference as a step in a better direction. Continue…

Searching for the Liberal Party. Day 2.

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 8:30 AM - 58 Comments

Greetings from Montreal, where, for the next three days, we’ll be hanging around the Liberal party’s Canada 150 conference. Herein a running diary of the proceedings. Day 1′s diary is here.

8:29am. Good morning. Montreal is chilly and quiet. In a few moments we will be roused by the dulcet tones of David “The Dodge” Dodge, former governor of the Bank of Canada.

8:36am. For those of you scoring at home, the colour of the lights today is orange. And the subject is Families.

8:45am. This conference was apparently the most tweeted subject in Canada yesterday. The Liberals are immensely proud of this. Continue…

Auld Lang Syne

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 1:17 PM - 132 Comments

CBC, June 20, 2008. Prime Minister Stephen Harper pulled no punches on Friday in describing a carbon tax proposal by Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, saying it would “screw everybody” across Canada.

Toronto Star, Sept. 11, 2008. The Liberals’ carbon tax plan will plunge Canada into recession, sparking economic unrest that will revive Quebec’s separatist movement, Prime Minister Stephen Harper says.

Toronto Sun, Dec. 22, 2009. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said today he hopes he won’t have to impose a carbon tax on Canadians as part of the fight to reduce global warming – but admitted he couldn’t entirely rule it out.

In other news

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, November 27, 2009 at 1:37 PM - 8 Comments

Michael Ignatieff gave a speech about the environment yesterday, the prepared text of which is here. The Gargoyle points to Stephen Gordon’s analysis here.

'We had a good plan'

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, October 30, 2009 at 9:45 AM - 59 Comments

In a speech at Carleton, Stephane Dion reflects.

Dion understands that the fear people had of his carbon tax is what hurt him the most.

“We had a good plan, Canadians ended up being afraid of it. The conservatives came with attack adds against me … [Stephen Harper] invested a lot of money in this… People were convinced that [the carbon tax]… was a fiscal change, we did a poor job to explain that their income tax would be cut by 10 per cent,” he said. “Now people are stopping me in the street everywhere telling me that they thought it was a good plan.”

But Dion is still confident, comparing his situation to the first time women tried to get the right to vote. “It’s not because we have a ‘no’ the first time that we have to stop … I met the minister of the environment of Sweden and I asked her how come in your country whatever the government does, is much more than [what we do],  she told me it wasn’t the case at the beginning but it is the case now.”

A retrospective

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, July 5, 2009 at 8:34 PM - 40 Comments

May 26, 2006. Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he plans to introduce a bill to set fixed dates for federal elections, as part of a wider movement towards democratic reform. ”Fixed election dates stop leaders from trying to manipulate the calendar,” Harper told reporters in Victoria, B.C. on Friday. “They level the playing field for all parties.”

May 30, 2006. The Honourable Rob Nicholson, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform today introduced in the House of Commons a bill providing for fixed election dates every four years … “Fixed election dates will improve the fairness of Canada’s electoral system by eliminating the ability of governing parties to manipulate the timing of elections for partisan advantage,” stated Minister Nicholson.

May 2, 2007. The Senate has passed a bill that will require federal elections to be held every four years. The proposed legislation, Bill C-16, which is scheduled to receive royal assent on Thursday, would mean Oct. 19, 2009, is the date of the next general election.

May 18, 2007. A secret guidebook that details how to unleash chaos while chairing parliamentary committees has been given to select Tory MPs. Running some 200 pages including background material, the document — given only to Conservative chairmen — tells them how to favour government agendas, select party-friendly witnesses, coach favourable testimony, set in motion debate-obstructing delays and, if necessary, storm out of meetings to grind parliamentary business to a halt.

Oct. 3, 2007. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper challenged the three opposition parties on Wednesday to either give the minority Conservative government a broad mandate for its policies or force a general election. Continue…

The Conservative war on irony continues

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, June 1, 2009 at 3:34 PM - 7 Comments

New to the inbox, a press release from the Conservative party expressing deep and genuine concern that the Liberals are too loosely throwing around the notion of national unity. The breathless kicker:

Michael Ignatieff and his team recklessly throw around the term “national unity”. If Michael Ignatieff had spent more time in Canada, instead of living abroad for 34 years, he and his team would likely be more careful about raising the spectre of national unity concerns so frequently and in response to so many issues.

Zing!

Anyway. So Michael Ignatieff’s been out of the country for, like, ever. What’s Stephen Harper’s excuse?

A new coalition, a different politics

By Andrew Coyne - Tuesday, May 26, 2009 at 3:55 PM - 33 Comments

It would be a stretch to claim that Gordon Campbell received much of a “mandate” in last week’s British Columbia election. With 46 per cent of the vote, in an election that saw turnout fall, for the first time, to less than 50 per cent, Campbell is the choice of barely one in five electors.

Still, it is triumph enough that he was not defeated. Not only were Campbell’s Liberals seeking a third term, an honour voters have historically proved unwilling to bestow, but as the incumbents in a recession-year election, they were fighting daunting odds. His win ought to make opposition parties in other parts of the country sit up straight: if they were under any illusion that they had only to show up, and the economy would carry them to power, they can think again.

Continue…

Iggy v. The Carbon Tax v. Russ Hiebert

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 27, 2009 at 1:09 PM - 7 Comments

The Conservative backbencher asks a question during QP this morning.

“Mr. Speaker, our government has always maintained that the last thing our economy needs is a job-killing carbon tax. Unfortunately, the Liberal Party continues to consider this irresponsible idea. The Liberal leader campaigned on it during his leadership race and vigorously defended it as a priority of a Liberal government just last fall. Can the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Industry please tell the House how the Liberal leader’s flawed policy ideas risk damaging Canadian industry?”

Iggy v. The Carbon Tax

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 27, 2009 at 1:40 AM - 51 Comments

Michael Ignatieff talks in Kamloops.

“We took the carbon tax to the public and the public didn’t think it was such a good idea,” he said. ”I’m trying to get myself elected here and if the public, after mature consideration think that’s the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard then I’ve got to listen.”

Stephane Dion's secret agenda EXPOSED!

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, January 10, 2009 at 4:18 PM - 16 Comments

The carbon tax? It was a sop to big oil.

Dion v. Harper, Crack-up in the Commons

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 3, 2008 at 1:40 AM - 55 Comments

I’d read about the sound that comes from a boxing crowd right before a major fight, but I didn’t fully understand it until I covered a fight (Mike Tyson’s last as a professional, oddly enough). There is a barely concealed blood-lust to the noise that rises up—a palpable, common desire to see someone grievously injured, an anxious excitement at the prospect of what violence may unfold before our eyes. It was, in my single experience, legitimately frightening.

The cacophony in the House of Commons this afternoon wasn’t quite like that. But that this afternoon was even vaguely reminiscent of that sound is probably enough to conclude that we are now in a dark, and perhaps dangerous, place.

“It was a fine day to be a parliamentarian,” Chuck Strahl said afterwards, selflessly surrendering his claim to be among the reasonable members of this government. Continue…