“Mark Carney got it done.” Let those four words wash over you and savour them. Linger on their delicious cynicism. What, you might ask is so momentous the Liberal Party would tweet out these five words as though the Messiah once again walked the earth? Was it his crushing Liberal leadership win? No. Was it his swearing in to official become Canada’s 24th Prime Minister? Try again. No, it was his signing of an order to “cancel” the Carbon Tax, a move of self-absorbed political narcissism the likes of which we may never see again.
In actuality, the carbon tax wasn’t cancelled. It’s simply been reduced to zero for the time being. To cancel the carbon tax would require legislative reforms and reopening Parliament.
Now, appearing to have cancelled the carbon tax may be good politics; in fact, it almost certainly is. And no one should be surprised when a politician changes their policy views, that’s par for the political course. But this hits differently. To see the Liberal Party of Canada crow, peacock and celebrate a decision to remove the carbon tax and then frame it as them taking action for Canadians on affordability is hubris and hypocrisy taken to levels rarely ever seen, even at Mar-a-Lago.
Canadians must ask themselves, following the discharge of effluent on X from the Liberal Party handle, if there is even one belief the Liberals hold true? Is there any policy, no matter how sacred that they would not defenestrate at a moment’s notice if they felt it could gain them an extra tenth of a percentage point in the polls? On recent evidence the answer must be a definitive “no.”
How short do they think our collective memories are? Through their latest actions, it is clear the Liberal party believes there is no limit to what the Canadian public will swallow from their firehose of disingenuous communications. Trumpeting the carbon tax reversal for a party which, until recently, admonished anyone opposed to the carbon tax as climate denialists set on polar bear cub genocide is an about-face which would make the most hardline Pravda editor blush. It is breathtaking in its total disregard for the intelligence of Canadians and voters.
The speed of the reversal is such that as of Sunday afternoon, the day after the signing of the declaration to remove the tax, the Liberal Party’s own website is still promoting their plan for a price on carbon.
For around a year now, Pierre Poilievre and the Conservative Party have shouted “Axe the Tax” at any and every opportunity they could. There was, it is fair to say, no one slogan which more encapsulated the Conservative momentum over the past 12 months than this. Justin Trudeau and the Liberals fought this message tooth and nail. Poilievre was a climate change denier, intent on making Canadians poorer by removing their carbon tax rebate. And now, suddenly, poof. Gone. Carbon tax consigned to the political dustbin. Meaning, surely, that Carney and the Liberals are now guilty of the same crimes ascribed to Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives not six months ago.
Is it perhaps tempting to paint all this as a change in leadership which necessarily comes with a change in policy direction. That would all be fair enough if we had not had to endure the last five years of being told that anyone who disagreed with the Liberals was, depending on the month, an anti-vaxxer, a racist, a misogynist or a climate-change denialist. These are not words which one can consider the norm for political discourse, though they have become all too common.
No, the Liberal Party has, for at minimum five years now, positioned themselves unequivocally on the side of good in all matters. Only they could lead our country into the new and post-national future. Nine years after taking power, with Canada suffering under the weight of a lost decade of economic and cultural vandalism, we are asked to believe that they deserve credit for walking back one of their signature policies when the political damage became too much.
This is a move so cynical it deserves no credit, only scorn, derision and disdain for a party which might make a fine weathervane, but is a sorry excuse for a government.
National Post