Green Shift: Policy versus Non-Policy

I've been somewhat reluctant to comment on the Liberal Green Shift Plan this week because I simply haven't had the time available for me to sit down and think past the rhetoric and look at the policy platform as it is presented.

After reading through the plan itself, and thinking a bit about some of the statements by the HarperCon$, and Dion's response.

Stepping aside from the partisan politics whirling through Ottawa these days and looking at the policy itself, it is an interesting model that Dion's team has put forward.

For years, critics of environmental protocols like Kyoto have sat on the sidelines and heckled - whining that cutting environmental emissions is going to be too hard on the country's economy. The 'Green Shift' policy attacks that criticism head-on, and through the most directly visible ways that most people experience government's hand - taxation.

Essentially, what the Liberals are proposing is a shifting of the tax burden - away from individual earnings, and placing it firmly in the hands of those whose actions impose high, long-term public expenditures to remediate. Whether we are talking about abandoned mines, or oil and gas wells that have been abandoned, often the "owners" of these properties either no longer exist, or the shifting sands of mergers and acquisitions has left the property in a no-man's land. The reality is that the cleanup of these properties lands squarely in the taxpayer's lap - after the fact.

While one might argue that my example is unrelated to going after a Carbon Emissions tax, the fact is that we face serious consequences if we do not work actively to make our collective carbon footprint smaller, and one of the most direct ways that government can intervene is by moving the economic burden towards those who produce the carbon load.

It's clear to me that this is one facet of a far reaching view of government policy as a means to influence the broad spectrum of public activity. The Green Shift is not a comprehensive environmental policy, but instead is a piece of policy intended to address the very real issue that simply slapping another tax into place is not going to have much effect other than being a damper on the economy. (and it would - if steps to counter-balance the impact of the new tax didn't exist in the framework)

In a policy designed to address the economic issues of changing Canada's GHG footprint, I have no reason to expect that specific targets are part of that policy.

I find it somewhat amusing that Harper and his ideological "clones" are trying to portray Dion's strategy as a "tax grab", and as a "NEP II" policy. For a party that is supposedly governing Canada, it seems to me that Harper is once again playing the role of Leader of the Opposition instead of governing.

Where is the Conservative environmental policy? Where is the government's legislation to implement that policy? Oh right - it DOESN'T EXIST!

All we've seen out of the HarperCon$ in matters of environmental policy and legislation are "do nothings" that postpone doing anything material until long after most of the current generation is dead, or policies that kowtow entirely to the interests of large corporations.

I'll give Dion this much - in the face of the HarperCon$ whose sole goal seems to be to ape the BushCo Rethuglicans at every turn, he is at least putting forward actual policy to address real issues. As opposed to the self-inflating, ego stroking that the HarperCon$ are engaging in.

Since Harper seems so willing to oppose the concept Dion's putting forward, and so unwilling to suggest alternatives, I suggest that voters return Mr. Harper to the opposition benches at the first opportunity. His role in parliament should reflect his behaviour - and his behaviour is entirely that of the oppositon, not the government.