Conservatives want people to believe we can do nothing, even as they insist they agree we have to do something
“Be it resolved that a carbon tax is the policy Canada needs to fight climate change.”
Terence Corcoran and Andrew Coyne go head-to-head on whether a carbon tax is the proper tool to fight climate change.
I’ll assume from the outset that we’re not arguing about climate change itself — whether it is happening, whether it is man-made, whether it is potentially harmful enough to be worth some cost to avoid — as virtually all mainstream carbon tax opponents claim to believe all three.
Likewise, I’ll assume we are not arguing whether Canada should at least try to meet the commitments it made at the Paris climate summit — targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions that were first set by the Harper government and adopted by the Trudeau government. While there’s room to doubt how seriously either party takes this commitment — at present we’re nowhere near achieving it or even on course to do so — both at least profess to support it.
So I’ll assume, for the sake of argument, we are agreed Canada should do something. The question we are arguing here is whether that something should include carbon pricing.
The only credible reason to oppose carbon pricing, if we’re agreed we have to do something, is if there is some better way of doing it. This bears repeating: The unspoken assumption in a lot of carbon tax critiques is that we can do nothing instead. While doing nothing has an obvious appeal, we’ve agreed to rule that out.
Andrew Coyne – National Post – May 25, 2019.
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