Liberals to push hard for fall election on environment, carbon tax

Conservatives call it "crazy" and "insane," but Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion is being lauded as an "agenda-setter" after unveiling his $15-billion carbon "green shift" tax policy last Thursday morning, and Liberals will now push hard for a fall election on the issue.

Mr. Dion (Saint-Laurent-Cartierville, Que.) released the plan which is tantamount to his party's election platform, at an elaborate and carefully orchestrated press conference.

"This policy announcement makes Stéphane Dion, for the first time, the agenda-setter. Up until now it's always been Stephen Harper who's been the agenda-setter, who's been in control. This big, Mulroney-type announcement changes the dynamic because the so-called weakling Dion is now out there setting the agenda and the Conservatives are rushing to attack him on this," said Globe and Mail columnist Lawrence Martin. "The Liberals had to prop up all these confidence motions in the House of Commons and had to look weak doing so. From this point of view, this is a fairly important initiative."

The Liberal plan will target industries, putting the price of greenhouse gas emissions at $10 per tonne, rising to $40 per tonne in the fourth year. The plan also calls for increases in taxes for diesel, jet fuel, and other energy sources and these new taxes are expected to generate about $15.4-billion annually in revenue after four years. from its implementation.

Mr. Dion unveiled the plan in the Railway Room of the Parliament Buildings to a full-house of journalists and cheering Liberal MPs, Senators, and staffers, many of them wearing green ball caps emblazed with the 'The Green Shift' logo.

Mr. Dion was introduced by his environment critic, MP David McGuinty (Ottawa South, Ont.), who spoke about the leadership Mr. Dion showed on the unity debate with his crafting of the Clarity Act, a bill outlining the rules for Quebec succession, which was passed in 2000.

The oft-embattled Liberal leader, who since winning the Liberal leadership race in 2006 has been panned for his lack of charisma and weakness at the helm of the official opposition, was given a hero's welcome by the crowd of Grits who chanted his name, frequently applauded, and gave him multiple standing ovations throughout his hour-long speech.

"If you talk to a lot of the Conservatives now, they don't really want an election right now, whereas if you talk to a lot of Liberals they're more inclined to say, 'Yeah, let's go for it.' They had a big meeting just recently where they were trying to get Dion to call an election. It's a case whereby with all the Conservative controversies of the last two months, culminating in the Bernier affair, the Liberals are not in a position where they have to look as weak as they did. If Harper wanted to call a snap election, they would gladly go for it. The tune has changed a bit, the scales of support have titled and the Liberals are much more confident than they were," said Mr. Martin.

The so-called "carbon tax" has been floating around in the Canadian political discourse for weeks, with the Liberals hinting they were headed in that direction but for the most part not releasing any details of what the plan would look like.

Debate on the issue didn't start popping up to any significant degree until the last week of May, however, when the Conservatives ratcheted up their attacks, culminating in the release of both video spots, featuring a talking grease spot, and radio attack ads, on June 9.

Beginning in early May, Conservatives MPs began using their private members' statements in the House to attack the "massive" Liberal carbon tax, saying it would astronomically raise the price of gasoline and that it fell in line with their suspicion that Mr. Dion wanted to hike up the GST.

"This is a central topic of the House right now, the Liberals are bringing forward their carbon tax plan and we're prepared to talk about it," said Conservative MP James Moore (Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam, B.C.).

Mr. Moore said members can use their private members' statements for "whatever they want" and that his party will be spending the summer the same way as the Liberals, reminding Canadians of Mr. Dion's plan, but "in an entirely different way, I suspect."

In the weeks leading up to Thursday's announcement of what the Liberals call "the green shift" and what the Conservatives call "the Dion tax trick," "Dion's tax on everything" and the "permanent new carbon tax," the Conservatives also focused much of their attack strategy on what they said was the lack of support for the plan within the Liberal caucus.

On Tuesday, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food passed a motion calling on the government to study what effects a carbon tax would have on farmers. Shortly after the motion passed, Conservatives, including party communications manager Ryan Sparrow and PMO deputy press secretary Dimitri Soudas, circulated emails to members of the press stating that the committee had just passed a motion "condemning" the carbon tax, with the Liberals on the committee "split" on the vote.

"Is this a sign that Stéphane Dion does not have the support of rural members of his caucus for his tax on everything," Mr. Soudas asked in the email. The emails contained the original wording of the motion, as it was put forward by Conservative MP Guy Lauzon (Stormont-Dundas-Glengarry, Ont.), condemning the tax, before it was amended to recommend a study on the issue instead.

"All you need to do is look at the final version of the amended motion and you compare that to what they're saying and you can tell, anybody can tell, that [the Conservatives] are misleading Canadians and they're being dishonest about this. This is exactly what Mr. Dion and the Liberals are saying, is that they're incapable about having an honest debate about carbon pricing," said Liberal MP Omar Alghabra (Mississauga-Erindale, Ont.).

Mr. Alghabra voted for the motion, as did his fellow Liberals on the committee, Wayne Easter (Malpeque, P.E.I.) and Lloyd St. Amand (Brant, Ont.), because he said he sees no harm in further examining the issue. The other Liberal on the committee, Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff (Thunder Bay-Rainy River, Ont.), voted against the motion, which is why Mr. Sparrow and Mr. Soudas referred to a Liberal "split" on the carbon tax issue.

Mr. Boshcoff said, however, that he voted against the amended motion because he thought the Conservatives were not capable of having an "honest" debate on the issue, and also because he found it suspicious that on the same day similar motions condemning a carbon tax were put forward by Conservatives in the House Transport, Natural Resources and Finance committees.

Liberal MP John Godfrey (Don Valley West, Ont.) told The Hill Times on Tuesday that caucus members had "good questions" about the plan but that crafting the platform was a "very inclusive process."

"I think [the plan] is very strong for caucus unity. This is a very big set of issues and caucus has worked very hard on this from every possible dimension," said Liberal House Leader Ralph Goodale (Wascana, Sask.), speaking to The Hill Times on Thursday moments before Mr. Dion's announcement. "I think caucus senses the historic nature of these possibilities and that's what's pulled people together."

The Liberals, aside from when the attack ads were released on June 9, had for the most part abstained from engaging in debate of what was then their yet-to-be-released carbon-pricing plan.

On Thursday, however, they knew the Conservatives would be aggressively attacking the green shift plan and that they could no longer abstain from defending it.

Mr. Goodale said he expected the government members would attack his party's plan with "childish drivel."

"That is what we have seen from them over the course of most Question Periods, especially in dealing with environmental issues," he said.

Mr. Goodale had particularly harsh words for the Minister of the Environment, John Baird (Ottawa West-Nepean, Ont. "The minister of the environment, in the eyes of anybody who takes the environment seriously, has become a joke. I was talking to some leaders in the oil patch in Calgary just in the last couple of days, and they were very candid in their assessment of John Baird, saying that in private meetings he is the same vacuous, empty vessel that he is in public. He's a comedian, he's a jokester and deep down he's shallow—there's nothing there."

Mr. Baird was largely absent from the debate in Question Period on Thursday, with Conservative MP Jason Kenney (Calgary Southeast, Alta.), who is the minister of state for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity, fielding most of the questions directed towards the environment minister.

"He does a great job. He's fluently bilingual and does a fantastic job in the House...This isn't just an environment question, it's a tax question and Jason Kenney does a very good job," said Mr. Moore.

Prime Minister Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) last week called the Liberal plan "insane," and "crazy," while other Conservative MPs in the Commons called it a "carbon tax on everything," that it's not revenue neutral, that Liberal MPs "have been on record opposing it," that it's a "tax trick," that it's not an emissions-reducing tax, that's it's "a revenue-generating tax to finance objectives that are not of the environmental kind," that it's a "Liberal tax promise to pay for Liberal spending promises," that it will increase the cost of home heating fuels, increase the cost of electricity, and increase the cost of transporting goods and services to all Canadians," and that Canadians "will not fall for this crock of green shift," as Conservative MP Lee Richardson (Calgary Centre, Alta.) put it.

But Mr. McGuinty said he believes the Conservatives are giving Mr. Kenney the job of attacking the Liberal plan because Mr. Baird can't do it effectively.

Declared Mr. McGuinty who has long sparred with Mr. Baird in the House: "They're looking for a new face, they can't put Mr. Baird up anymore because whenever they put Mr. Baird up on anything with the environment there is zero credibility. People just now snicker and they dismiss and, unfortunately for Mr. Baird, he's made himself the object of ridicule in the House and across the country because he's not doing his job at all as minister of the environment, that's why I said in my question during Question Period, 'Well where the hell is the minister of the environment? Why isn't he answering these questions?' This is the most important environmental announcement the Liberal Party has made in three years, say. It's a massive and coherent plan and why isn't the minister of the environment asking? Because he can't."

Mr. McGuinty said he believes the Conservatives' attack strategy is "infused with Republican tactics," and that it is dominated by what he calls the "Harris-quintuplets," referring to five prominent Conservatives who played a role in the government of former Progressive Conservative Ontario Premier Mike Harris.

"Those five individuals, you know who they are: Guy Giorno, who is arriving, John Baird, Jim Flaherty [Whitby-Oshawa, Ont.], Tony Clement, and Peter Van Loan [York-Simcoe, Ont.]. The five of them were all trained in Ontario by Mike Harris and a fellow named Mike 'Mud' Murphy, who's the most ruthless Republican attack-dog in the United States. Let them deny it; the only thing they know is to go hard aggressive, wedge politics, they're scared silly of this plan."

With the House adjourning on Friday, speculation of a summer election has been put to rest. Mr. Dion and the Liberals say they will spend the summer "explaining" their plan to Canadians and it is widely expected the country will be heading into an election in the fall.

"[The Conservatives] have a huge money advantage, and they'll be able to get these attack ads going. The question is, at some point, will Canadians view these attack ads, as Dion puts it, as an insult to their intelligence, because the Conservatives are so confrontational that sometimes they go overboard and it might come back on them. Harper looked so great on the residential schools thing; he looked generous, conciliatory, he got rave reviews from the media, and some people thought, 'Well maybe the guy will clue in from that and change his tune and start being more that way,' because Canadians really like that," said Mr. Martin.

He said that if the Liberals do a good job of selling the policy over the summer that in the early fall they would be pushing "very, very strongly" for an election.

Mr. Goodale said there is a communications plan in place for all MPs to sell the Liberal's green shift plan to Canadians this summer.