O’toole’s bold but risky move on climate change
Tory leader knew he had to upgrade plan
Erin O’toole is likely to find his party is 100 per cent behind his new climate change plan — that being the best angle from which to stab him in the back.
The Conservative leader knew he would face criticism from a movement that is often loath to adapt to changing times.
But he should be commended for having moved his party beyond its opposition to consumer carbon pricing.
Accusations are already being made by erstwhile fellow travellers like the Canadian Taxpayers Federation that he has betrayed those who believed his leadership pledge that he would repeal the Liberal carbon tax.
But O’toole also knows that his future was bleak if he did not adapt to a political environment in which a credible climate change plan is a prerequisite for any party with ambitions of government.
He may still be doomed. But this plan gives him a fighting chance in vote-rich provinces like Ontario. The Conservatives elected 73 MPS in the province, with 44.4 per cent of the vote in 2011. But the party’s share of the vote fell to 35 per cent (33 MPS) in 2015 and again to 33 per cent (36 MPS) in 2019. It was no coincidence that concerns over climate change were waxing as Conservative fortunes waned.
A new Abacus Data poll on Thursday suggests O’toole’s party would win just 29 per cent of the vote, were an election held tomorrow. These are not numbers on which you start preparing for government.
In the world of sword and shield issues, global warming is a vulnerable topic for the Conservatives. I would contend that Andrew Scheer lost the last election because he had a Potemkin Village of a climate plan, a fake policy that was designed to look solid. O’toole’s slate of initiatives is a serious upgrade.
Voters who believe that climate change is real and want their government to do more — about two-thirds of the electorate, according to polls — will wonder about the curious nature of the plan.
It does repeal the Liberal carbon tax, only to replace it with “personal low carbon savings accounts,” which would operate like loyalty or affinity programs. Consumers would swipe a card when buying gas and the carbon surcharge would be refunded to them, to spend on a pre-approved list of green services and products like a transit pass or a bicycle. “It puts the consumer in the driving seat,” said O’toole. “Zero dollars go to government, so it is not a tax at all. It is a pricing mechanism for consumers.”
That whole statement is debatable. How is the consumer in the driving seat, if the list of goods and services he or she can buy must be approved by the government?
On the correct designation for the new policy, experience suggests if it looks like a tax and acts like a tax, it is a tax.
Conservative officials maintain that the savings accounts could be administered “relatively efficiently” by the private sector. But it seems like a lot of effort, just so the Conservatives can say they scrapped the Liberal plan.
Trudeau’s carbon tax has its shortcomings. The amount rebated to farmers and rural residents needs serious re-examination — many spend far more than they get back. But the mechanism is relatively simple — you pay at the pumps and get a refund on your taxes or in the mail.
The new plan is going to be harder to communicate. But that is not to dismiss it out of hand. The Biden Administration is set to unveil ambitious emissions reduction targets without a national carbon pricing plan.
The semantics are less important than the fact that O’toole has looked his party in the eye and asked it to do something it doesn’t want to do. Whether he can carry his caucus with him is an open question.
One aspect Conservatives will appreciate is that the consumer pricing component is capped at $50 a tonne, compared to the Liberal plan, which sees the carbon tax increase to $170 a tonne by 2030.
That differential in terms of emissions is made up for by a suite of “flexible regulations,” such as already exist in British Columbia — a zero-emission vehicle mandate that would require 30 per cent of all cars to be electric by 2030; a low carbon fuel standard that would mandate a 20 per cent reduction in the intensity of fuels, and a national renewable natural gas mandate, that would require 15 per cent of natural gas to come from renewable sources.
The O’toole plan would also match the Liberal policy on industrial emissions. “We aren’t going to change the rules just for the sake of change,” the policy document said, which is smart.
The core Conservative plan was audited by Navius Research, a respected climate modelling consultancy, which concluded it “achieves comparable greenhouse gas reductions as the announced federal policy through 2030” (although next week’s budget is likely to increase the level of ambition in the Liberal plan beyond the 30 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030).
There is also a suite of policies that were not part of Navius’ calculations — a total or around $15 billion to be spent between now and 2030 on electric vehicle manufacturing, hydrogen technology, carbon capture, small modular nuclear reactors and natural climate solutions like wetlands. Intriguingly, the policy document hinted at potential new taxes on frequent flyers, non-electric luxury vehicles and second homes, without committing to any of those policies.
By and large, with the carbon pricing issue resolved, this reads very much like the Liberal, or even NDP climate plan.
There is an emerging consensus on how Canada will meet its Paris Accord commitments, on which all the parties are in agreement.
It’s not before time — Environment Canada revealed this week that emissions were just 9MT or 1.1 per cent below 2005 levels in 2019. Granted emissions intensity was down nearly 25 per cent and the carbon tax had only been in existence for eight months. But to make up that shortfall is going to require clear, long-term, predictable emissions reduction policies that will survive a change in government.
As a new report by the Business Council of Canada — Clean Growth 3.0 — points out, Canada’s greenhouse gas emission intensity is 3.25 higher than the global average. That’s the bad news. More optimistically, we have strengths in emerging technologies like biofuels, hydrogen, battery storage, small modular reactors and carbon capture. The federal government’s hydrogen strategy suggests hydrogen alone could satisfy 30 per cent of Canada’s energy needs by 2030, supplanting natural gas.
O’toole’s plan very much fits into the BCC’S vision of a federal policy that matches climate ambition with sustainable growth.
It is not perfect, but it is credible and, as Michael Bernstein of Clean Prosperity, pointed out, all the major political parties have now agreed that carbon pricing should be at the heart of any climate plan.
As Dr. Samuel Johnson remarked on seeing a dog walking on its hind legs. “It’s not done well but one is surprised to see it done at all.”