Kenney has a carbon problem

Audaciousness can only take him so far

It was like a political master-class in Liberal-bashing on the Hill Monday. Not only did we have a chip off the old block — Pierre Poilievre — but the old block himself, Jason Kenney.

The former Conservative minister, and current leader of the opposition in Alberta, was in town to air his grievances about the Trudeau government’s carbon tax in front of the Finance committee.

But first, the newly-svelte United Conservative leader sparred with reporters in the foyer of the House of Commons.

Poilievre introduced him, after which Kenney jokingly thanked “my former intern. I taught him all he knows.”

He could say the same about a great many Conservatives down the years.

Poilievre blushed, in part because it’s true — he’s matured into the most effective purveyor of political language in the House since, well, Jason Kenney.

To be clear, I mean that in the Orwellian sense — “political language is designed to make lies sound truthful, murder respectable and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

Kenney’s line is that the federal government is acting in unconstitutional fashion by insisting that provinces usher in carbon pricing, or see a price imposed by Ottawa.

He said his first act in government, if elected, will be to repeal the “Trudeau tax,” adding that if the Prime Minister tries to impose a carbon tax in Alberta under his leadership, his province will join Saskatchewan’s constitutional challenge on federal carbon pricing.

Kenney’s gift is his audaciousness — inconsistencies in his position that would cause lesser politicians to stumble, merely result in him dusting himself off before plowing on.

I asked him how he could claim Ottawa is right to insist on its constitutional primacy on pipelines but wrong when it comes to carbon pricing.

The Constitution is clear, he said, the federal government has jurisdiction when it comes to inter-provincial infrastructure. “It’s black and white in law.”

In answer to another question, he also said he has no quibbles with Ottawa regulating emissions, which is carbon pricing by any measure, just a mechanism that is less visible to taxpayers.

Yet when it comes to a carbon tax, he claims section 92 of the Constitution says revenues raised for provincial purposes are the exclusive preserve of provincial legislatures.

If that’s so clear cut, why did Manitoba, no fan of Trudeau’s tax, accept the legal opinion that the feds were within their constitutional rights to impose a carbon tax?

“Saskatchewan was advised differently,” said Kenney. “We need to get clarity from the courts.”

With Saskatchewan’s reference question to its provincial court of appeal, that will come in due course.

But experts like Stewart Elgie, professor of law and economics at the University of Ottawa, have pointed out already that provinces have challenged federal environmental laws in the past and have lost.

They seem destined to again, which will exhaust Kenney’s legal levers.

Poilievre and his colleagues have spent much of their parliamentary time in recent days going after the government on the so-called “carbon-tax coverup.” This was prompted by the receipt of analyses of the cost to the average family of a carbon tax, with all the relevant number redacted.

He is correct — the Liberals are going to have to come clean and tell Canadians what the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Price Tax currently before Parliament is going to cost them. (A study by researchers at the University of Calgary suggests $50 a tonne could cost a household up to $1,120 annually by 2022.)

But Conservatives in Ottawa and Edmonton are going to have to be honest about their own plans for carbon pricing — most likely regulation that could cost even more than $50 a tonne, if the party is serious about meeting Canada’s Paris targets, as Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has pledged to do.

It was intriguing to watch Catherine McKenna, the Environment Minister, trying to upstage Kenney before he talked to reporters, as if he were still the minister and she were in opposition.

“Unfortunately, the Conservatives think this (climate change) is something you can play partisan games with,” she said.

The Liberals are clearly nervous at the Conservative coalition that is emerging in provincial capitals.

But the weight of legal precedent — and the need for the Conservatives to offer an alternative to the federal carbon tax — remains in their favour.

Even Jason Kenney can’t finesse that inconvenient truth.