The Peter Kent school of journalism

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 22, 2013 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

The Environment Minister pointedly objects to a story by Mike De Souza* by suggesting that De Souza is an “environmental activist” who favours a carbon tax. Here is the full letter, as printed by the Windsor Star on January 4.

I am writing to clarify a few points from Mike De Souza’s Dec 24 article regarding the federal government’s proposed regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from light-duty vehicles. Our government is committed to protecting the environment and reducing greenhouse gas emissions while minimizing the economic impact on Canadians. We are working with the United States to develop GHG regulations that reflect the highly integrated North American auto sector, which includes thousands of Canadian manufacturing jobs.

Mr. De Souza, like most environmental activists, believes that a carbon tax is the only answer to combat climate change. Our government is fundamentally opposed to broad-based carbon tax schemes like the NDP’s $21-billion plan to tax everything without links to environmental benefits.

Canada has undertaken a sector-by-sector regulatory approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Under our plan, industrial sectors are forced to reduce carbon emissions at the smokestack or tail pipe by developing and deploying innovative technology.

Ours is the first Canadian government to reduce greenhouse gases and we will continue act in Canada’s environmental and economic interests.

PETER KENT, federal Environment Minister, Ottawa

Mr. Kent writes that he’d like to “clarify a few points” about the story, but he doesn’t actually identify any particular parts of the story that he objects to. De Souza’s story is a reporting of the costs associated with the government’s new fuel economy standards as those costs are identified and explained by the Harper government in the Canada Gazette. I linked to that cost-benefit analysis here on December 8. And some of those costs were noted when Mr. Kent announced the regulations in November.

The minister’s letter refers to the NDP proposal as a carbon tax. More specifically, the NDP has proposed a cap-and-trade system. This is a bit of a thing. Mr. Kent, for instance, was first elected as a Conservative in 2008, when the party’s platform included a promise to pursue a cap-and-trade system—a measure the minister now equates with a carbon tax.

Joe Oliver tried to use a letter to the editor to make the government’s case in November. Ironically, in that letter Mr. Oliver deferred to the judgement of “eminent economist” Jack Mintz. Mr. Mintz supports a carbon tax as the best policy option to reduce greenhouse gases.

*Full disclosure: I’ve met Mike and I think we’ve chatted briefly a couple times, so I guess we’d qualify as passing acquaintances.

‘Let my carbon go’

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, January 18, 2013 at 5:32 PM - 0 Comments

This Hour Has 22 Minutes takes on the cap-and-trade debate (such as it is).

How bout that weather?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 15, 2013 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments

Tim Harper wonders whether extreme weather and U.S. policy could put pressure on the Harper government to change its approach to environmental policy. The Washington Post’s editorial board notes that 2012 was the warmest on record in the United States and makes a suggestion.

Scientists can’t yet know to what extent man-made emissions influenced the heat and calamitous drought. But the result is nevertheless ominous, “a huge exclamation point on the end of several decades of fairly consistent warming,” as NOAA’s Deke Arndt put it. The year offers a vision of what will happen more often on a planet that is heating — slowly and fitfully, not every year warmer than the last, but inexorably.

There is still uncertainty. Though they have a range of estimates, scientists still do not know exactly how sensitive the global climate system is to human carbon emissions and exactly how steep the long-term temperature line will be. Predicting the consequences of a given temperature rise is also difficult. That’s an argument not for doing nothing but for managing the risks, spending now to avoid the likelihood of much greater costs later, as any good business would do in the face of certain threats of uncertain magnitude.

The smartest hedge would be a national carbon tax. It would marshal the market’s power to wring carbon out of the economy, putting decisions about the direction of energy and manufacturing in the hands of consumers and businesses that meet their demands, not Congress and interest groups that lobby lawmakers. When people must pay something for their pollution, they pollute less and invest in cleaner alternatives. A carbon tax would provide more certainty to industry and investors who currently can only guess at what climate policy will look like year to year.

The trouble with taxes

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 8, 2013 at 1:35 PM - 0 Comments

The Globe wonders whether this will be the year we learn to love taxes.

It’s all part of a remarkable embrace of taxes, not only for the wealthy but for all of us. Portugal, Spain, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Britain, France, Japan and the United States have all introduced tax increases to cover growing national debts and costly stimulus programs. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the average tax burden increased in 26 out of 34 OECD countries last year.

Whether these tax measures can come close to solving fiscal problems remains to be seen. More interesting is the shift in our attitudes: The language around current tax debates taps into social values of fairness and equality as well as responsibility – the latest measure of patriotism is paying up.

But how exactly would this conversation take shape here? Maybe a royal commission on taxation would start the discussion. But, at least federally, the NDP leader has ruled out increasing taxes. And the frontrunner to lead the Liberal party has ruled out increasing the GST. That still leaves a little room to maneuver: a price on carbon could be part of a discussion about “paying up” and, one supposes, Mr. Trudeau could institute a small tax on the highest earners without breaking his word to focus on the middle class. And, one imagines, the New Democrats and Liberals could make the same proposals they made in 2011 to raise the corporate tax rate. But where other countries have large deficit and debt problems, the federal deficit is not talked about as a profound crisis here. Meanwhile, the spending cuts so far made by the Conservatives have not yet inspired a great deal of public consternation. And discussion about taxes probably has to start not with the question of why new revenue would be needed: what exactly makes raising revenue necessary and how that revenue would be used.

Newfoundland on carbon pricing

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 21, 2012 at 2:38 PM - 0 Comments

Continuing with our survey of provincial policies, a response from the government of Newfoundland.

In 2011, the government released Charting Our Course: Climate Change Action Plan 2011 setting out the government’s strategy for reducing GHG emissions and enhancing resilience to unavoidable climate impacts. The Plan contains 75 economy-wide commitments. In the Plan, government reiterated its commitment on a provincial basis to the regional targets adopted by the Forum of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers in 2001, namely, reducing provincial GHG emissions to 1990 levels by 2010, by 10% below 1990 levels by 2020, and by 75-85% below 2001 levels by 2050.

In view of the share of GHG emissions coming from the large industrial sector (51% in 2010), government stated in its 2011 Climate Change Action Plan that it would require the large industrial sector to contribute to GHG reduction efforts going forward. The sector encompasses electricity generation, mining, oil refining, offshore oil and large-scale manufacturing. In Plan, government committed to develop, and publicly release in 2012, a detailed approach to reducing GHG emissions in the sector. Government recognized the importance of ensuring any approach was both environmentally progressive and economically prudent.

Government has established good working relations with the companies in the large industrial sector, leading three rounds of bilateral consultations, engaging companies in technical work to assess GHG abatement opportunities and competitiveness considerations, and maintaining an ad hoc dialogue with companies on key issues as they arise. Government has discussed three main approaches to reducing GHG emissions with the industrial companies: regulation with market based alternative compliance (conceptually similar to Alberta and Saskatchewan), emissions trading (Western Climate Initiative), and carbon taxes. In early 2013, government will finalize which of these three approaches it will pursue. This timeline is a few weeks behind the public commitment to release its approach in 2012, however the issue is quite complex and government wished to ensure that a comprehensive assessment was completed.

Cap-and-trade is coming to Quebec

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 18, 2012 at 4:35 PM - 0 Comments

The Quebec government announced last week that it is moving ahead with plans to link with California’s carbon market.

“The cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emission allowances (SPEDE) is a major advance in the fight against climate change,” explained Yves-François Blanchet. “Europe, China, Australia and Japan are working in this direction. Québec and California are now leaders in this endeavour.” … “Discussions with our counterparts in California are extremely positive. I am confident that we will see a full linkage of the Québec and California markets during spring 2013 in anticipation of the first joint auction planned for August, 2013. Québec and California have agreed to work together closely so that Canadian provinces and U.S. states join the market. As a result of this agreement, Québec will be in a position to achieve its emission targets, and businesses will have an innovative and flexible tool enabling them to participate in the effort,” concluded Minister Blanchet

Why Canada won’t have an effective climate change policy anytime soon

By Stephen Gordon - Tuesday, December 18, 2012 at 8:28 AM - 0 Comments

Any effective climate change policy requires imposing significant costs on consumers and households. Canada doesn’t have an effective climate change policy because Canadians don’t want to pay those costs.

Or do they? This is from an article posted at the David Suzuki Foundation site:

While Canada’s federal representatives — including Environment Minister Peter Kent — were doing all they could to obstruct the talks, public opinion and social research institute The Environics Institute was conducting its annual check with Canadians on our thoughts about climate change.

The findings of the new poll couldn’t paint a starker picture of the divide between Canadians and their political leaders.

More and more of us are confident about the science that shows climate change is happening and that we are mainly responsible for it, largely through burning fossil fuels. The good news in the poll concerns what Canadians believe we should do to tackle this serious issue. Across the country and among all political stripes, most of us believe that governments need to do far more to curb emissions. As the pollsters note, “a clear majority believe the problem is real, that government must take the lead role through new regulations and standards, and that citizens like themselves must help pay for the necessary actions through taxes and higher prices for the goods and services they consume.”

Continue…

Nova Scotia and Manitoba on pricing carbon

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, December 17, 2012 at 3:09 PM - 0 Comments

Alberta, British Columbia and Quebec already have some form of carbon pricing. Quebec is set to move forward with a cap-and-trade system and Ontario is still, at least on paper, committed to doing likewise (though it obviously remains to be seen who will be in charge of that province this time next year).

As for the other provinces, I’ve asked a few of them: what is the government’s position on carbon pricing, either through a carbon tax or cap-and-trade?

A spokeswoman for Nova Scotia Premier Darrell Dexter responds as follows.

Premier Dexter has not supported a carbon tax approach because energy is often an essential expenditure for Canadian households. Nova Scotia has spent several years looking at cap and trade models, but in 2009 decided to reduce emissions through regulation rather than wait indefinitely for a cap and trade model that was solid enough to merit consideration of Nova Scotia joining. Companies in Nova Scotia that tried to use cap and trade systems found it was not very worthwhile.

When I asked about the possibility of a national cap-and-trade system, I was told, essentially, that the Premier would have to think about it before offering an opinion. (“The Premier would give a considered answer, which would take some time, since that has not been a focus of his environmental or energy policies as NDP leader and then as premier also. There’s not much more we would be prepared to say on that right now.”)

A spokesman for the Manitoba government, meanwhile, offers the following.

Manitoba has taken a number of steps to reduce GHG emissions within Manitoba and abroad. We remain a full partner and continue to observe the progress being made within the Western Climate Initiative (WCI). Last year we publicly consulted on a cap and trade system. The reaction we received was mixed. There are concerns about the potential impacts that a cap and trade system, as proposed under the current WCI framework, would have on Manitoba’s economy.

In January of this year our government introduced a $10 per tonne emission tax on coal and committed to use the revenue generated by the tax to help coal users transition to renewable biomass energy. Already we have seen a significant transition from coal to biomass in rural Manitoba.

In our Speech from the Throne last month, our government committed to bringing in a new mandatory emissions reporting regulation for large emitters. This new standard will bring the threshold for reporting below the current federal standard and will provide Manitoba with important information on the sources and magnitude of emissions in the province.

Manitoba generally supports carbon pricing as an effective means of reducing GHG emissions and transitioning toward a lower carbon economy. Given the relative size of Manitoba’s economy and our lack of point-source emitters, it is difficult for our province to move forward with carbon pricing policies on our own, but we continue to monitor and evaluate actions taken in other jurisdictions.

Manitoba’s preference, in the absence of federal leadership, is to move forward with an approach to carbon pricing that is consistent with jurisdictions across Canada. In our role as Co-Chair of the Council of the Federation’s Canadian Energy Strategy Working Group, Manitoba looks forward to leading a discussion on potential carbon pricing models.

Both the Manitoba and Nova Scotia governments are NDP governments. The New Democrats in Manitoba have a majority and conceivably won’t face another election until 2015. The New Democrats in Nova Scotia have a majority, but will likely face a difficult election in the new year.

The Liberal government in British Columbia, which instituted that province’s carbon tax, could be defeated next year by the NDP, but the province’s NDP leader seems interested in keeping the tax.

Thomas Mulcair on cap-and-trade

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, December 17, 2012 at 1:26 PM - 0 Comments

As part of last week’s conversation with the NDP leader, I asked a few questions about cap-and-trade and putting a price on carbon.

Are you ready, are you prepared, to fully engage a debate on carbon pricing?

It has to be part of the equation. When I talk about including the price and polluter pay, that’s part of the equation, of course. And that’s a basic principle of sustainable development.

Do you worry at all that you’ve lost that debate already by the fact that they can throw the phrase “carbon tax” at you?

When you watch Jacques Gourde being replayed in English, because he did one of his stupid stunts in English, you realize that the average Canadian commentator just looking at this is saying, these guys have lost their marbles.

This is a serious subject. Global warming is not a joke. It’s not a theory. It’s not somebody’s idea. It’s measurable. The disappearance of the polar ice cap is not a fiction, it’s measurable. They don’t want to measure it anymore, but it’s actually happening. If we have the two degrees centigrade temperature increase that we’re fearing, then we will have an extraordinarily damaging effect on life on earth and ecosystems and their ability to adapt that rapidly to that type of change. There are climate change deniers, but the jury’s already rung in on that. We can have different solutions for how to deal with that, we can have different analyses of how we got there. But the basic fact of the matter is if we don’t reduce greenhouse gases, then we’re in trouble. The way that works, the way that I’ve seen this work, because I was a minister of the environment and I was able to work on these things … I remember there was a big debate in 2008. We, like the Conservatives, were saying cap-and-trade. There was a strong reason to say cap-and-trade. By the way, we got pushed back strongly by some environmental groups: why aren’t you backing the Green Shift? And my answer was always forthright and straight and strong. I said, look, when it wasn’t CO2, it was SO2, which combined with H2O was producing S2HO4, acid rain. It was raining sulphuric acid on our forests and on the American forests in the northeast. We got together with the Americans, and companies like Inco, that had steadfastly refused to put in the scrubbers in their stacks, when faced with a lowering ceiling and the obligation to trade within that closed market, the year that it finally became more expensive for them to purchase the credits than it would be to put in the scrubbers, they put the scrubbers in. They had refused to put in the scrubbers, they had threatened to shut down and this was in the face of a Conservative Bill Davis government in Ontario, they had been pig-headed about it. The landscape up there was so rough that that’s where the Apollo astronauts trained. Go back to Sudbury today, you see millions of trees have been planted, the place is coming back, they’ve done the responsible thing.

So a cap-and-trade system will lower your ceiling, force people to come up with choices, get creative. If you look at the three years I was a minister in Quebec, you’ll see drops in greenhouse gas production, we were applying a plan. The Liberals, on the other hand, signed Kyoto and I can give you three words that you can google “Eddie,” “Goldenberg” and “galvanize” … it says so much about who the Liberals are. He admitted that they signed Kyoto as a public relations exercise. With no plan to meet any of those goals. That’s why Canada went on to have one of the worst records in the world … The Liberals have a history of flashing left and turning right on this sort of stuff. We’re going to try something new that’s never been tried before in Canadian politics, we’re going to tell people what we’re going to do and then once we’re elected, we’re actually going to do it.

The one issue that has come up … even, I think, within the NDP, is this question of revenue and whether revenue from cap-and-trade should be used strictly for environmental purposes or whether it could go into general revenues.

I think that there has to be an equivalent amount that goes into environmental purposes. It has to be concentrated in those provinces, those areas where that money is being generated. One of the things that we can do is displace some of the coal that we’re burning and we should be heading for that. That’s why I was the only Quebec politician in the 2011 campaign to back loan guarantees for the Lower Churchill. We took a hit on it a couple weeks ago. The Bloc was out there lighting their hair on fire. The National Assembly had its umpteenth resolution against those loan guarantees. And I stood up four-square in favour of those loan guarantees because you can’t be in favour of green renewables and then be against them the minute somebody wants to build them in another province. So this is actually a part of the vision of sustainable development that we’re going to be putting forward, a grid, a system of green renewables across Canada to displace a lot of the heavy oil, the coal that we’re burning to create electricity.

I don’t want to split hairs too much, but would you rule out using cap-and-trade revenue for social programs?

Yes. Somebody will tell you that at some point there’s a vases communicants, but what I’m saying is that you would have to have an equivalent amount that would go to those environmental purposes.

The revenue question goes back to a point of debate raised by Brian Topp during the NDP leadership race. For the sake of comparison, the Liberal “Green Shift” would have seen new revenues from a carbon tax matched by cuts to personal income taxes, cuts to corporate taxes, deductions meant to assist northern and rural Canadians with energy costs and measures to assist those with low incomes. In that last way, it was not a straight tax swap, nor a shift that was pitched as strictly environmental: it was also meant to deal with poverty.

The NDP’s 2011 platform attempts to match cap-and-trade revenue with spending on “green initiatives” (though it shows a fairly large surplus in year four). What I should have also asked Mr. Mulcair about last week was whether revenue from cap-and-trade would be used in any way to reduce costs on consumers through tax cuts or breaks. The party’s 2011 platform includes measures to reduce home heating costs (removing the federal sales tax from home heating and an extension of the home energy retrofit program), but there is also money set aside for “Helping Canadians Adjust.” In the discussion about costs, and when comparing the Conservative and NDP approaches to carbon emissions, it is obviously necessary to know how any increases in costs for consumers will be handled.

It is also interesting to note Mr. Mulcair’s insistence that revenue from cap-and-trade “has to be concentrated in those provinces, those areas where that money is being generated.” The idea that cap-and-trade could result in money being transferred from one province to another is a concern that Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall has raised.

Q&A with Thomas Mulcair

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, December 14, 2012 at 2:38 PM - 0 Comments

I sat down with NDP leader Thomas Mulcair in the leader of the opposition’s office yesterday. Here is a transcript of our conversation, slightly abridged and edited.

How do you see the last year for you and the NDP? Do you feel you’re winning? Do you feel you’re getting somewhere?

We’re doing well. And the Abacus poll was confirmation of that … I dare say that we’ve been through a rough 18-month cycle. I mean, we started off in 2011 with a huge high, May 2. We realized then … It was interesting. I don’t think I’ve told too many people this story. I sat down with Jack shortly after, like two, three days after the election and when we became official opposition, he was asking me to become opposition House leader, it was a great feather in my cap. And then he said something to me that was quite interesting, he said, you know, this is a huge challenge. And I was just expecting him to be so effusive with the breakthrough and everything and he said, no, no, this is going to be a huge challenge. So then the huge challenge became all the bigger with his loss. And then we had to really work hard through a long, seven-month leadership  where we were missing a lot of our frontbenchers who were in the campaign and then we had to rebuild.

When I held the little press conference up in Toronto after the leadership, the next day, I used an expression that came to spontaneously, I said, we’re going to have a cascading transition under the sign of continuity. So I was so lucky, like somebody like [chief of staff to Jack Layton] Anne [McGrath] stayed with me long enough to hand off to [current chief of staff] Raoul [Gebert], overlapped with Raoul … So a couple of the other changes that took place were like that. We brought in a few people, the core team you still recognize when you see them around us. And so it’s been a huge challenge in terms of the structure and the organization, but some of the good points for me after becoming leader: in August I was doing my parish visit in Quebec, I would be in places like Vercheres—Les Patriotes, where Sana Hassainia is our MP, and be in a community hall on a Sunday morning with several hundred people who had all paid as part of a fundraiser, but she had municipal officials there, you know the mayors and the councillors, she had community groups, she had the schools and stuff like that. They’re getting settled in, they’re putting down roots. The same day I was at a corn roast for Helene LeBlanc and she had about 600 people and a lot of the cultural communities, so they’re setting down roots, they’re doing their fundraising, they’re getting well known in their communities, they’re in their local papers, so that part’s coming together.

Come this spring, we’re pivoting, right? We’re going to be entering the third year. And so the consolidation phase has to be finished. We’ve got to start the preparatory phase for the next campaign. Continue…

The Conservative cap-and-trade plan: The same, but different, but still the same

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 at 12:32 PM - 0 Comments

The Prime Minister’s director of communications tries, in an exchange of tweets with Postmedia’s Michael Den Tandt, to explain the difference between the cap-and-trade system the NDP is proposing and the cap-and-trade system the Conservatives used to advocate for: specifically, why the Conservatives describe one as a “tax” when the other apparently wasn’t.

show me where we plan to raise 21.5 billion in revenue in our platform or Throne Speech

the NDP books 21.5 in gov’t revenue from plan. 2008 platform had no gov’t revenue associated with it. Not in 2011 platform or SFT

no revenue to gov’t. The NDP plan does – hence the tax

no, it’s a tax because the gov’t wld get the $. But, if you prefer, we’ll call it $ the NDP gov’t wld extract from Canadians.

At the risk of plagiarizing myself, I’ll again note that this argument about government revenue is irrelevant. At least so far as the Conservatives are concerned. As I have explained at various points, the reference to revenue is, by the government’s own logic, a red herring. The Conservatives have said that, in their present opinion, anything that establishes a price on carbon is a carbon tax. By this logic, it simply does not matter whether that price results in public revenue or private revenue.

If the Conservatives ever previously publicly and categorically renounced the idea of deriving government revenue from a cap-and-trade system, I’ve yet to see evidence of it. (For whatever it’s worth, the American cap-and-trade legislation that Canada would have conceivably partnered with would have resulted in government revenue from the auctioning of permits.) But when John Baird was championing his government intention’s to establish a price on carbon in 2008, he said that industries would pay into a “technology fund.” Here are the details of that proposed fund. Does that count as government revenue?

‘Critically hurt Canadian families’

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 11, 2012 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

From Brian Jean just before QP yesterday, another one for the “A price on carbon will destroy your family” file.

Mr. Speaker, it is almost Christmas, a time when our thoughts naturally turn to family, friends and gift giving. This Christmas, NDP members are behaving more like Scrooge than Santa. They want to give Canadians the gift of a carbon tax. This is no gift, but rather a money grab, a lump of coal that would create hardships all across Canada for hardworking families.

The oil sands fuel the economy and creates jobs in all parts of Canada. Every day, workers fly out of northern Alberta, my home, taking their well-earned good wages back to their families in Newfoundland, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and all of Canada.

A carbon tax like the NDP is proposing would critically hurt Canadian families. Our government has lowered taxes for all Canadians, promoted trade, increased exports and kept our economy stable. I ask all Canadians during the holidays to raise their voice and say no to the NDP lump of coal, no to the NDP carbon tax.

Alberta actually already has a price on carbon, but that price is not sufficiently apocalyptic, then perhaps the current carbon tax review in British Columbia will turn up evidence of critically wounded families.

Regulations and carbon pricing can work together

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, December 8, 2012 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments

On Friday, the Harper government’s new fuel efficiency regulations were published in the Canada Gazette, including the full cost-benefit analysis.

These costs are incremental to the baseline so, for example, technology costs add $195 million (present value) to the costs of the model year 2017 fleet, and add $2.4 billion (present value) to the costs of the model year 2025 fleet.

The incremental technology costs for model year 2017 are expected to be $127 for cars and $162 for light trucks, increasing to $1,856 for cars and $2,453 for light trucks in model year 2025 in order to meet the increasingly stringent standards of the proposed Regulations. In reality, relative changes in vehicle prices and performance may affect consumer choice; however, it is not within the capacity of the analysis to model consumer choice.

PJ Partington of the Pembina Institute defends the new standards and argues that a price on carbon would complement such regulations.

None of this is to say that carbon pricing doesn’t have an important role in tackling emissions from transportation. Carbon pricing would support these regulations by creating more demand for fuel-efficient vehicles and encouraging people to reduce their vehicle use. Carbon pricing would also provide revenues that governments could re-invest in clean transportation options like transit and electric vehicle infrastructure.

We don’t see it as a choice between carbon pricing and efficiency standards: they’re complementary, not alternatives. By ensuring that efficiency continues to improve across the board, standards like these help manage the impact of higher gas prices from carbon pricing, and ensures that they will have plenty of cleaner options to choose from. The Western Climate Initiative, which features a cap-and-trade system, also sees stringent vehicle standards as a key complementary policy to carbon pricing. An economic modeling assessment of climate policy options for Canada that we published in 2009 took the same approach. 

You can’t say that here

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 6, 2012 at 6:01 PM - 0 Comments

It was apparently Ryan Leef’s turn to enunciate the party line this afternoon, so the Conservative MP for the Yukon stood in his spot along the back row and proceeded with his statement.

Mr. Speaker, no matter how mad the leader of the NDP gets it does not change the fact that his $20 billion—

Here, alas, the Speaker called for order and, without saying another word, moved on to the next MP (in this case, Susan Truppe). I would guess that Mr. Leef’s sin was alleging an unflattering personal attribute—”mad”—about another member. Thus was he deprived the further 55 seconds he might have had to relay his concerns. Don’t feel too bad for him though, he has already this fall used four of these precious opportunities to explain his opposition to the NDP’s position on cap-and-trade.

Jacques Gourde achieves government backbencher nirvana

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, December 6, 2012 at 1:09 PM - 0 Comments

The Conservative MP’s statement to the House yesterday afternoon.

Here again is a rough guide to the Conservatives’ carbon tax farce.

Reaching our GHG goals thanks to a price on carbon

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 at 1:32 PM - 0 Comments

Peter Kent addresses the UN convention on climate change in Doha.

Canada is halfway to achieving our national effort to meet our Copenhagen target. The combined efforts to date of federal, provincial and territorial governments, of consumers and of businesses will generate half the greenhouse gas reduction required to meet Canada’s greenhouse gas target by 2020.

This year’s report on emissions trends, surveyed the federal, provincial and territorial scenes thusly.

In this year’s report, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is projected to be slightly higher in 2020 than in the previous report (by 0.8%), while GHG emissions are lower (by 5.3%). The projected decline in GHG emissions is thus associated with a reduction in  intensity, implying greater de-coupling between GDP and GHGs. The improvements in  emission intensity are in part due to: i) increased contribution of the services sector,  which typically emits less emissions per dollar of GDP; and ii) actual emissions in 2010 were lower than projected, while actual GDP was higher. The decline in emissions intensity was also due to the fact that consumers and businesses are making more progress in reducing emissions. Government programs are contributing to this by helping to accelerate the adoption of energy efficient technologies and cleaner fuels.

Canada is moving forward to regulate GHGs on a sector-by-sector basis, aligning with the U.S where appropriate. The Government of Canada has started with the
transportation and electricity sectors – two of the largest sources of Canadian emissions – and plans to move forward with regulations in partnership with other key
economic sectors, including oil and gas. Last year’s report included emissions regulations for light-duty vehicles for the model years 2011-2016 as well as an
electricity performance standard to phase-out coal-fired electricity, Alberta’s Specified Gas Emitters Regulation, British Columbia’s carbon tax and Quebec’s carbon
levy. Provincial policies such as Ontario’s phase-out of coal-fired electricity also made important contributions. Projected emissions levels in the 2012 version of the report have further declined, in part through the inclusion of further federal actions on additional emissions regulations for light-duty vehicles for the 2017-2025 period as well as heavy duty vehicle regulations. Recent provincial actions (e.g., Quebec’s capand-trade, Nova Scotia’s emissions cap for electric utilities, increased stringency of building energy codes, equipment standards and requirements for capturing methane from landfill gas) are also included. Total emissions in 2020 are projected to decrease to 720 Mt.

Exchanging tweets with Rona Ambrose

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, December 5, 2012 at 10:31 AM - 0 Comments

Yesterday, via Twitter, I sought clarification on environmental policy in the province of Alberta.

Technical question: Does Alberta have a carbon tax, cap and trade or both?

Among the respondents was Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose.

Alberta’s policy prices carbon but funds are directed into a technology fund to reduce GHG’s not to general govnt revenue.

I followed-up with Ms. Ambrose.

Do you support that?

And Ms. Ambrose obliged with a response.

works for Alberta because money stays in Alberta and is managed by an investment board. Can’t comment on GHG reduction results.

This has been the second instalment of Exchanging tweets with Rona Ambrose.

The case for pricing carbon

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 4, 2012 at 12:22 PM - 0 Comments

Ontario’s environment commissioner makes the case for carbon pricing.

Some jurisdictions are responding to this existential threat by pricing carbon pollution. Australia has implemented a carbon pricing program that charges companies the equivalent of $24 for every tonne of CO2 they emit and intends to link this program with the European Union Emissions Trading System. Japan implemented a carbon tax in April 2012, and China has created seven different pilot carbon pricing programs with a view to rolling out the best Annual Greenhouse Gas Progress Report 2012 model nationally by 2015. In North America, several provincial and state governments are taking steps to enact domestic carbon pricing policies. California and Quebec have put a legislated cap on carbon emissions and will require large emitters to comply through the purchase and trade of carbon allowances starting in 2013. 

British Columbia has re-afrmed its commitment to a carbon tax program that has earned international recognition as an effective model for climate action. As evidence that smart climate action does not hurt economic performance, in the four years since B.C.’s carbon tax took effect (2008–2011), the province’s economic growth (as measured in gross domestic product) has outpaced the rest of Canada, and personal and corporate income tax rates have been reduced to among the lowest in the country. At the same time, per capita fossil fuel consumption in B.C. has dropped substantially – declining 16.4 per cent more than the rest of Canada – and hybrid vehicle adoption has been twice the national average.

While it may be premature to make a direct correlation between the carbon price and these trends, they are nonetheless consistent with experiences in other jurisdictions that have had a carbon price in place for over a decade (e.g., United Kingdom, Germany and Sweden). These benets have also been recognized by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, which has argued that a “price signal is the most powerful incentive for both industry and consumers to conserve energy and enhance efciency. Coupled with the appropriate overall policy framework, carbon pricing can lead to innovation and new technologies that have positive outcomes for consumers and position Canadian rms to be suppliers of less carbon-intensive products and services.”

The commissioner formally recommends that the Ontario government ”conduct an analysis of the environmental, social and economic impacts of alternative carbon pricing mechanisms and release it to the public for discussion.” The ministry responds as follows.

Ontario has been clear that we are not developing a carbon tax. Emissions trading is an alternative carbon pricing approach. Ontario is developing a greenhouse gas reduction proposal which includes working with our Western Climate Initiative partners and stakeholders to develop a regional emissions trading program.

Joe Oliver tries to explain the farce

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 29, 2012 at 11:54 AM - 0 Comments

On Monday, Vancouver Sun columnist Craig McInnes criticized that the the Harper government’s “carbon tax” attacks on the NDP. Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver has now responded in a letter to the editor.

I am disappointed your columnist Craig McInnes has fallen for NDP leader Thomas Mulcair’s carbon tax boondoggle.

Novel opening gambit.

His plan would raise more than $20 billion in tax revenues from carbon – so it is not inaccurate to label it a carbon tax.

“Not inaccurate” is an interesting turn of phrase. But as we have explained at various points, the reference to revenue is, by the government’s own logic, a red herring. The Conservatives have said that, in their current view, anything that establishes a price on carbon is equivalent to a carbon tax. Therefore, it simply doesn’t matter whether that price results in public revenue or private revenue.

That said, if you want to play along with the idea of government revenue as an important distinction, consider that when John Baird was championing his government intention’s to establish a price on carbon in 2008, he said that industries would pay into a “technology fund.” Here are the details of that proposed fund. Does that count as government revenue?

President Obama recently joined Prime Minister Harper in opposition to a cap and trade system, which Mr. Mulcair supports.

Not quite. President Obama’s press secretary ruled out the possibility of the White House proposing a “carbon tax.” But the President previously proposed a cap-and-trade system. His press secretary’s phrasing—”would”—leaves open the question of whether the President sees a distinction between a carbon tax and cap-and-trade or if, as the Harper government is now trying to argue, Mr. Obama believes the two options are equivalent.

Eminent economists like Jack Mintz say the NDP plan could raise gas prices by 10 cents a litre.

There was some debate during the last election campaign over the precise impact on gas prices, but it’s interesting to see Mr. Oliver defer to the expertise of Mr. Mintz. The eminent economist thinks a carbon tax is the best approach to reducing GHG emissions.

Canada’s trucking industry also came out against a carbon tax because it would raise prices on the goods they transport. Mulcair’s NDP’s carbon tax will raise the price of everything, including gas at the pump, groceries at the checkout counter and electricity in your home. We simply can’t afford Mulcair’s NDP.

The regulations Peter Kent announced earlier this week will raise the price of cars. The government’s regulations for the coal-fired electricity sector will raise the price of electricity. And the Conservatives still have to announce their regulations for the oil and gas sector.

By the way, I remain happy—eager, even—to sit down with Mr. Oliver or Mr. Kent to discuss all this at the earliest opportunity.

(For whatever it matters: Craig’s column referred to my writing on the subject, but I don’t believe Craig and I have ever met, spoken or otherwise interacted. If we have crossed paths at some point in the past—and I’m simply forgetting that—I can categorically say that we didn’t speak or interact in regards to his column before it was published.)

See previously: Peter Kent tries to explain the farce

‘A $36-billion car tax’

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 3:50 PM - 0 Comments

NDP MP Glenn Thibeault’s statement in the House before Question Period this afternoon.

This is probably Stephen Gordon’s fault.

To Strathmore, Consort and beyond

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 28, 2012 at 11:30 AM - 0 Comments

Kevin Sorenson’s latest MP reports in the Strathmore Standard and Consort Enterprise conclude thusly.

While our government is working to balance the federal budget, in the House of Commons we continue to stand up against the NDP plan for a massive $21 billion job-killing carbon tax.

Meanwhile, last week, Rob Merrifield informed readers of the Mayerthorpe Freelancer, Whitecourt Star and Fort Creeks as follows.

 We will also continue to stand up against the NDP plan for a massive $21 billion job-killing carbon tax.

Here again is a rough guide to the Conservatives’ carbon tax farce.

Putting a price on carbon will apparently take away everyone and everything you love

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 at 4:20 PM - 0 Comments

Further to John Baird’s warning that a carbon tax “would kill and hurt Canadian families,” Christian Paradis sought this afternoon—while responding to a question about foreign investment, mind you—to clarify the extent of the destruction.

It is not a responsible approach to try to impose a $21.5 billion carbon tax on the shoulders of Canadians and to have a plan to tax everything. Everything would be lost. The economy would be lost and family would be lost.

It is a good thing Mr. Paradis avoided reading the platform he ran on in 2008 and plugged his ears when the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister and successive environment ministers championed the idea of putting a price on carbon. He no doubt would’ve been horrified to know of the destruction his colleagues were openly advocating for.

Of course, it is perhaps to wonder why British Columbia and Alberta have not (as yet) been reduced to post-apocalyptic hellscapes.

Here again is a rough guide to the Conservatives’ carbon tax farce.

Preston Manning on putting a price on carbon

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 27, 2012 at 9:54 AM - 0 Comments

In September, Preston Manning was linked vaguely to a new call for a carbon tax—he was said to support the idea of full-cost pricing “in principle.”

For the sake of clarification, I passed along a question to him through his office: “Do you support establishing a price on carbon, either through a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system?”

Here is the response I received via email yesterday.

“I support the concept of moving towards full cost accounting with respect to energy production – which means determining the negative environmental impacts associated with any energy project, adopting measures to avoid or mitigate those effects, and ultimately integrating the costs of those measures into the price of the product.

As you know, the two principal approaches to accomplishing this, with respect to the production of energy from hydrocarbons, are through a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system. I believe that the carbon tax involves less interference by governments in the marketplace than the cap-and-trade approach.

However I also believe that the carbon tax is misnamed, as the public’s idea of a tax is a levy on income or the sale of a good or asset, the proceeds of which go to the government to pay for public services – which is fundamentally different from the economist’s idea of using a tax to internalize an externality. It is the communication of the carbon tax concept to the public which I feel was hopelessly bungled.

I also believe that if you are going to apply full cost accounting to the production of energy from petroleum sources, then the same concept should be applied to every other energy source, since none is environmentally neutral. For example when the oil sands producers tear up several hundred square kilometers of forests in northern Alberta, the cost of mitigating that activity are incorporated into the cost of the operations through reclamation bonds. But where then is the reservoir tax on the hydro producers of this country who have flooded forest areas in Canada the size of lake Ontario? And similarly, where is the radiation tax on nuclear power producers, and where are the environmental levies on wind and solar producers?

In my view the application of full cost accounting and pricing to hydrocarbon producers should be conditional upon the simultaneous application of this concept to all other energy producers.”

‘It’s the producing provinces in Alberta and British Columbia that are leading the way’

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 26, 2012 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Bob Rae talks to Tom Clark about putting a price on carbon.

Tom Clark: But I want to move on to one other thing here and that is the question of whether we should be putting a price on carbon so that at some point down the road the government can move towards either a cap and trade system or a carbon tax. What do you think? What would you encourage your party to decide on that? Should Alberta…some form of carbon tax?

Bob Rae: Alberta and British Columbia have already indicated that they’re pricing carbon. That’s what BC is doing, Alberta is doing it. There are other provinces that are considering doing it. I thought Mr. Harper was in favour of that. I’ve heard Mr. Harper and many ministers; John Baird when he was Energy Minister, others saying that a price on carbon was a good idea. To me, I don’t know how we send signals to the marketplace about how we need to conserve energy going forward unless we have a coordinated approach to carbon pricing. Ironically now, it’s the producing provinces in Alberta and British Columbia that are leading the way in terms of saying yes we need to send a signal, so is Quebec saying the same thing. I think there is a very powerful consensus growing in the country that we need to have a national federal-provincial approach to the pricing of carbon. I hope it very much that the premiers and the prime minister can agree on this in the months and years ahead.

See previously: Bob Rae steps up to defend carbon pricing