As Mark Carney assumes the reins of the Liberal party, what indications are there he is substantially different than Justin Trudeau?
I see few.
He will give lip service to his being different, but it is hard to see how. On the matter of carbon tax, he not only has indicated over the years that he believes in it but has also said our tax in Canada is not high enough and he would merely change how it is charged, switching from consumers to producers.
Regardless, it is consumers who in the end pay all taxes.
But for Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives, whose massive lead in the polls shrank when Justin Trudeau announced he was stepping down, just the fact that there has been a change may be enough.
It worked for the Ontario Liberals when their unpopular leader Dalton McGuinty stepped aside in favour of Kathleen Wynne. She and the party won several elections as a result under the notion that Wynne was different; that she hadn’t been a part of the McGuinty policies.
A caller to my Newstalk 1010 radio show on Monday articulated the problem the Conservatives will face.
I had taken on a comment from Carney putting the Liberals forth as the party to save the planet. He said Poilievre will let our planet burn.
I would put it to you that Poilievre has a better plan than Carney does. Consider:
The Liberal plan, in action for a decade, is just tax, tax, tax and cancel or refuse to build pipelines. For the general population it is a lose, lose proposition. We are not exploiting our resources to build wealth and jobs, while we are taxed up our own pipeline.
Poilievre said, “My priority is to stand up for our country and our interests over here. I want to sell our natural gas to India. National Bank did a study showing that with India’s growing electricity demand, if we sold them enough gas to supply half of that demand, we can reduce greenhouse gas emission by three times as much as the total emissions of Canada because we’ll displace dirtier coal.”
He said we have 1,300 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves.
His plan is to exploit that resource, which will up our carbon output, but reduce the carbon output of India to a greater degree for an over all win for the planet, for India and for Canada.
That is not a slogan. It is a plan, and it vastly outperforms that of the Liberals. It is a win, win.
The caller said she hasn’t voted Liberal for years, as she hated Trudeau, but she can’t vote for Poilievre.
She put forth that empty slam on Poilievre being all slogans and no plans.
I asked about the carbon and gas plan I had just articulated, and why I was wrong.
She said I wasn’t wrong. Poilievre’s plan is better.
She just doesn’t like him.
I said, “It’s about what is better for the country.”
She doesn’t care. She’ll cut off her nose to spite her face.
It took a while for enough voters in Ontario to figure out that Liberals are Liberals and to vote them out.
Do we have another cycle with the federal Liberals before that happens?