National Post (National Edition)
Old Liberal arrogance has returned
Governments grow understandably tired of critics who spend their days finding new things to complain about, but the Trudeau Liberals are unusually forthright in displaying their contempt for anyone who holds views they reject.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau did little to make life easier for himself when he heaped derision on anyone who dared question his attempted changes to the small business tax last summer. If he’d done a bit more listening and a lot less attacking he might have lessened the embarrassment that came when he eventually had to capitulate.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau evidently learned nothing from concerns — including from within his own caucus — raised when he made clear that anyone who differs from his beliefs on abortion is not welcome to run for the Liberal party or to vote their conscience in the House of Commons. His government took its refusal to countenance dissent a step further by linking a summer jobs program to abortion beliefs, blocking students from summer job grants if the institution doing the hiring dares to hold pro-life opinions.
Environment Minister Catherine McKenna is the latest to display this sense of righteousness in telling CTV’s Evan Solomon she can’t be bothered with people who don’t fully support her approach to climate change.
“I have no time for folks who are, like, you know, ‘we shouldn’t take action,’” she said during a spirited exchange.
“What do you mean you have no time?” Solomon countered. “You’ve gotta have time. Your job is to have time for folks who care about this issue and want to understand.”
Backpedalling, McKenna tried another approach: “No, I don’t have time for politicians who play cynical games about climate change … I don’t have time for politicians who pretend that climate change isn’t real.”
It was an excellent example of the Liberals’ faith in their moral infallibility, and the misleading politics they’re willing to engage in to defend that position. McKenna’s second kick at the can — claiming her beef is with fellow politicians who think climate change is a hoax — would be a fair point if there were a horde of Canadian leaders who hold that view. Unfortunately, while there may still be one or two holdouts, most of the discussion about climate change is over the measures deployed by governments like Trudeau’s, and whether they are likely to produce real improvement, or are mainly a cynical political ploy to raise cash on the back of public guilt.
Perhaps the most vociferous critic of the Liberal position has been Brad Wall, the recently-retired premier of Saskatchewan. Wall doesn’t question the reality of the issue or the need for action, he simply disagrees that a tax is the most effective means of dealing with it. And he has an excellent argument: there is lots of valid doubt as to effectiveness of carbon taxes. While pricing unquestionably has an impact on consumer habits, and a stinging carbon tax would no doubt encourage people to be more cautious, big uncertainties remain.
For instance, in order to work, the taxes have to be high enough to change personal habits. But the higher the tax, the more likely people are to get upset. So politicians introduce charges that aren’t high enough to do the job, but conveniently funnel more revenue into government coffers to spend on other goodies.
There is also legitimate concern that tax hikes in well-meaning countries like Canada are largely wasted as long as much bigger and more populous countries like India and China — and Donald Trump’s U.S. — continue to pour emissions into the atmosphere. It’s nice to be on the right side of an issue, but should Canadians really be forced to pay heavily for token measures that won’t reduce the problem?
An additional argument relates to the uses politicians find for the tax once it’s in place. British Columbia, which began charging for carbon a decade ago, defended it by pledging all revenue would be returned to taxpayers, but has quietly and steadily moved away from revenue neutrality, finding ways to divert the money to favoured programs. The new NDP government of Premier John Horgan abandoned the pretence altogether in its first budget, announcing that carbon revenue would be used to “create jobs, benefit communities and reduce climate pollution.” As a kicker, the first of four annual increases to the B.C. tax took effect on Sunday.
Like so many zealots, McKenna tries to portray all doubters as blithering idiots who are either too stupid to understand the issue or too callous to care. It’s a haughty and cavalier approach, the sort of imperious pomposity that so annoys non-Liberals. To support her point she raised the recent Progressive Conservative leadership campaign in Ontario. There were four candidates, she noted, and “not one had a plan, not one of them.”
That’s not true. Even the most fiercely outspoken of the four — fringe candidate Tanya Granic Allen — asserted her belief in climate change. Her point, as with the others, was that the green energy program introduced by Ontario’s Liberals is ineffective and riddled with defects. The cap-and-trade program gives special treatment to preferred industries. The money goes into whatever revenue hole the government needs to plug. The huge subsidies paid to alternative energy firms produce overpriced power the province doesn’t need and sells at a loss. The special deals cooked up with foreign firms have proved catastrophic money-losers, forcing the government to chop away at multi-billion-dollar contracts.
For McKenna, leaders like Ontario’s Kathleen Wynne are preferable because they “have a plan.” Like so many politicians, she loves plans, because they give the appearance that something is being done. It may be a bad plan, which carries heavy costs for taxpayers while producing no progress, but at least it’s a plan, and can be waved about at a photo op.
Her critics might suggest it’s better to seek out practical options that achieve a measurable end while minimizing the pain on consumers. But McKenna has no time for them.