The human backdrop at a political event means taking real people and reducing them to scenery, curated and arranged like a person bouquet.
If you’re a supporter who gets plucked out of the crowd to stand onstage, it must feel like going out to run errands and ending up as an extra in a movie. If you’re a politician, it has to be less fun. You have skills and accomplishments, and presumably you take pride in something beyond your ability to applaud like a trained seal.
Several provinces have issued a joint statement, calling on the federal government to eliminate the carbon tax on all forms of home heating.
The united front comes after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a pause on the tax for home heating oil, a decision that largely benefits Atlantic Canada where 30 percent of families use the oil to heat their homes. Other provinces rely more on different sources, like natural gas.
Last week was earnings week for big car manufacturers — one of the quarterly updates they are required to make to investors regarding their profits and losses.
Nearly all of them announced they would be scaling back their production of EVs (electric vehicles) because – wait for it – consumers don’t want them.
A million years ago … pardon me, my notes indicate rather surprisingly that it was the spring of 2021. Two and a half years ago, the Supreme Court found in favour of the federal government in the case of the References re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (GGPPA). It was a tricky division of powers question.
Since manmade climate change is a global collective action problem, laws to curtail greenhouse gas emissions aren’t inarguably in the natural bailiwick of either the federal government or the provinces. The federal Liberals made such a law, applying a “backstop” carbon price to — IN THEORY — the federation as a whole.
Opposition motions in the House of Commons are usually little more than political theatre. Non-binding points of principle and resolutions are made that often are voted down and are usually soon forgotten.
The motion being considered in Parliament next week is different. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership and legacy may be on the line.
OTTAWA — Liberal MP Ken McDonald said he has no regrets for breaking ranks with his party on the carbon tax not once, but twice, and he isn’t ruling out doing it again next week.
The Conservatives are forcing a House vote on Monday on a non-binding motion calling on the government to broaden the temporary pause on the carbon tax for home heating oil, which mostly helps only the Atlantic provinces. The motion will ask the Trudeau government to extend the tax break to all heating fuels, including natural gas.
OTTAWA — Liberal MP Ken McDonald said he has no regrets for breaking ranks with his party on the carbon tax not once, but twice, and he isn’t ruling out doing it again next week.
Liberal members of Parliament must choose what’s more important — loyalty to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or helping their constituents heat their homes.
Never expect Liberal MP’s to do the right thing.
Jonathan Wilkinson, the minister of natural resources and energy, is not one to raise his voice. But as the Conservatives needled the government over its new carbon tax carve-out on Tuesday, Wilkinson started to get a bit shouty.
“Mr. Speaker, in the House, one thing is clear. The Conservative Party has no belief in the reality of climate change and no plan to fight it,” Wilkinson said.
“This government is focused on ensuring that we are addressing affordability challenges in a thoughtful way, while concurrently addressing the climate issue. It is a shame in the House, it is a shame in the country that we have a political party that denies the reality of climate change and is willing to give up the future of our children.”
OTTAWA — With the Liberal government opening the door to exemptions to its carbon tax, an Ontario Grand Chief wants it pushed even wider to a full exemption to the levy on Indigenous lands.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last week that the government would exempt home heating oil from the carbon tax for the next three years. The exemption will apply nationwide, but the benefit will mostly flow to the Atlantic provinces where 40 per cent of homes use the more carbon intensive fuel to heat their homes.
h/t Mauser
The NDP will be supporting a Conservative motion to pause the federal carbon price on all forms of home heating.
New Westminster-Burnaby MP Peter Julian made the announcement Thursday afternoon following question period, upping the pressure on the Bloc Quebecois to either support the Liberals in voting down the motion on Monday, or join the opposition push.
Be nice if they could goad junior into making it a confidence motion.
Every week, it seems, we get another report revealing the deep thoughtlessness and fiscal recklessness of Ottawa’s electric car and electric-car battery fixation. For example, the Parliamentary Budget Officer recently asked how long it will take for the federal government to see a return on the $28.2 billion of production subsidies to EV battery-makers Stellantis and Volkswagen. The answer — about four times longer than the government originally claimed.
If the Liberal government was to abandon the carbon tax entirely, inflation in Canada would drop 16 percent, says Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem.
Mr. Macklem provided this information while testifying before the House of Commons finance committee on Oct. 30.
The federal government will not be offering any more carve-outs to the carbon pricing policy beyond the plan to pause the tax on home heating oil, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday, doubling down on comments his natural resources minister made.
“There will absolutely not be any other carve-outs or suspensions of the price on pollution,” Trudeau said. “This is designed to phase out home heating oil, the way we made a decision to phase out coal… This is specifically about ending the use of home heating oil, which is more polluting, more expensive, and impacts low-income Canadians to a greater degree.”
The global boiling climate breakdown age of fire is so serious that no price is too high to pay to stop it. Except Liberal parliamentary seats in Atlantic Canada in our gravely unserious nation.
Thus we awoke recently to snow in the backyard. No wait, to news that the federal carbon tax on home heating oil will be suspended for three years because the urgent man-made climate crisis isn’t really that serious after all. Or their magnificent policies won’t actually help anyway. Or Liberal polling numbers are looking so grim that the burning Earth must wait.
