Finally, a credible Tory climate plan

Game on! The release of Erin O'Toole's credible climate plan has given the Conservatives a shot at winning the next election. It'll be a big uphill slog, but without a credible climate plan, there would have been no slog at all.

First things first. Why do I say it's a credible plan? Don't take my word for it. Let's just quote a few of Canada's top climate policy thinkers.

Nicholas Rivers, climate economist at the University of Ottawa: “Overall, I'm impressed.” Andrew Leach, University of Alberta Business School and the pooh-bah behind the 2015 Alberta Climate Leadership Plan: “Welcome to the table, @erinotoole.” Mark Jaccard, Professor of sustainable energy at Simon Fraser University, father of Carbon Taxes Aren't The Only Way, and connected to the NAVIUS folks who formally evaluated O'Toole's plan: “The policy package achieves Paris.” Dave Sawyer, principal economist at the federally funded Canadian Institute for Climate Choices, “the Conservative plan is credible.” Dale Beugin, VP Research and Analysis at the same Institute, “credit where credit is due for a serious plan.”

Even Justin Trudeau's eco-whisperer Gerald Butts caused Conservative heart palpitations with “congrats to the Canadians who made this happen.”

Now each of these folks have reservations about specifics in the plan. So do I. And that's the point. We are now past whether the Conservatives have a credible plan to whether the Conservatives have the right credible plan.

The industrial side of O'Toole's plan keeps to which Trudeau, Jason Kenney and Doug Ford have all committed. The consumer side involves paying a lowish carbon tax into personal savings accounts which can be used to buy approved green stuff later, plus a whole host of regulations and incentives to get to the same targets as the Liberals.

To repeat. Game on! By which I mean the internecine discussion among Conservatives is about to get interesting. That's right, this isn't the end, just a waypoint on the internal debate among conservatives. And whatever way that discussion goes, Erin O'Toole now cannot lose.

Any federal plan has to take account of what is going on in the provinces. The current federal plan is not imposed at all where provinces design their own plans — as BC and Quebec have done. That also works for parts of the plan — Kenney has retained much of the former Alberta government's carbon tax on industrial emissions, so the current federal plan doesn't apply on industrial emissions in Alberta. O'Toole's plan will have to do the same.

This means the new discussion O'Toole has opened up is with Kenney and Ford. Those two provincial conservatives face a cold, hard reality. They had hoped the Supreme Court (burying long-standing conservative opprobrium towards judge-made law) would rule that the federal government somehow couldn't impose a national carbon levy, price or tax. (I can't keep track of which what word tiresome constitutional lawyers were balancing on the head of a pin in that case.)

The Supreme Court demurred. That closed the legal door and now Erin O'Toole closed the political door.

I have shown elsewhere that the federal Liberal tax and rebate plan is a net loser for many rural and suburban Conservative voters and a net winner for many urban NDP and Green voters. Trudeau would love to get those latter voters into his column in his quest for a majority government. Kenney and Ford know this but may have been hoping that Erin O'Toole would somehow win on a promise to scrap the whole thing.

The first part of that was wishful thinking. Lisa Raitt has said publicly that the lack of a credible climate plan cost her her seat in the last election — the type of seat Conservatives need to win to form government. The 905 belt of suburban seats around Toronto that Conservatives need to win will not vote for them without a credible climate plan. Now the second part of that is gone — O'Toole has a credible climate plan he intends to impose if he forms a national government.

So we're back to Kenney and Ford. Is the O'Toole climate plan the right plan for Jason Kenney's voters? Is it the right climate plan for Doug Ford's voters?

More importantly, why would Ford or Kenney let Ottawa do something when they could do it better themselves? Why send billions of dollars in revenues from consumer carbon taxes to Ottawa's coffers when they could put those revenues in their own coffers? Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe has seen the light and is designing a domestic system now. Every other provincial government has done or is doing so as well.

And here's the great thing. Kenney and Ford can do the sensible thing and design a superior provincial plan. They could use carbon revenues to cut personal or corporate income taxes or boost childcare tax rebates rather than give restricted visa-cash-back style rebates. They could rely on markets through a higher carbon price rather than big government via heavy regulation like fuel standards. And if they develop their own system, it doesn't matter what Rivers, Leach, Jaccard, Sawyer, or Beugin (in this context, what Butts thinks doesn't remotely matter) think the failings of the federal Conservative plan are, because it won't ever be implemented anywhere.

So thank you Erin O'Toole for a wonderful salvo in this debate about what kind of carbon price, tax, levy a Conservative government should implement. It is exciting to see conservatives and Conservatives get beyond debating whether we should have some form of carbon pricing, taxes or levy and start debating what kind of carbon pricing, taxes or levies we should have. Because I've got some ideas.

Game on!

IT IS EXCITING TO SEE THE DEBATE START TO REALLY TAKE SHAPE.