Liberal prime-minister-in-waiting Mark Carney keeps insisting he’s not a politician, but he’s selling himself short.
Like any good Liberal politician, his position on carbon taxes is a hot mess of contradictions and on other issues he’s saying one thing to Quebec in French and another to the rest of Canada in English.
Antoine Trepanier, writing in the National Post, even got Carney’s campaign to admit he’s been saying different things in Canada’s two official languages, after he cited an example, with receipts.
But true to Liberal doublethink worthy of George Orwell’s 1984, Carney’s campaign ascribed it to the Liberal leadership front runner needing to “tighten up” his messaging, when the problem is his messaging is different depending on who he’s talking to.
As Trepanier reported:
“Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney’s campaign said it needs to ‘tighten up’ his message after he said in English that he would use federal emergency powers to push major energy projects through traditional roadblocks if he was prime minister, but then told Quebecers in French that he would not impose any such projects on the province against its will.”
On another occasion, Trepanier said, Carney delivered contradictory messages in French to different interviewers.
“His campaign is also walking back comments Carney made in French about cutting federal social transfers. Earlier this month he said he would focus on reducing ‘operational deficits’ by cutting transfers to provinces and individuals. Then on Monday, in French again, he told a different interviewer he would never do such a thing.”
When it comes to explaining his position on carbon taxes, Carney’s rhetoric is worthy of the bafflegab of the man he’s poised to succeed as prime minister — Justin Trudeau.
Of all the nonsense Trudeau has spouted to explain his support of carbon taxes, the most bizarre was his claim that he favours a carbon tax because, “I prefer a clean, market-based solution” to addressing climate change, as opposed to “the heavy hand of regulations” and “incentives … subsidies and rewards.”
Except his plan to reduce industrial greenhouse gas emissions includes a carbon tax plus regulations and incentives, subsidies and rewards.
It contains, to cite four examples, clean electricity regulations, clean fuel regulations, methane regulations and regulated targets for zero-emission vehicles.
As for incentives, subsidies and rewards, according to parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux, the Trudeau government has earmarked $31.4 billion of federal taxpayers’ money — so far — to subsidize 13 electric vehicle and EV battery manufacturing projects in Canada.
Carney matched Trudeau’s bafflegab when he recently claimed his carbon pricing plan wouldn’t cost the public any money because all of it will come from “big polluters.”
As Carney described it:
“My government will immediately remove the consumer carbon tax … Instead what we’ll do is create a system of incentives to reward Canadians for making greener choices. So it means that you’ll no longer have to pay more to fuel your car or heat your home, but when you choose an energy efficient appliance or an electric car or home insulation, you will be rewarded and we will get the big polluters to pay for it.”
In reality, the public will pay for it in higher prices as the “big polluters” pass along their increased costs to us.
Carney also supports a second carbon tax — a tariff on imported goods coming into Canada if the feds decide their country of origin isn’t doing enough to address climate change.
Those tariffs will increase the price of these goods to Canadians who purchase them.