The Leftist's Case Against The Carbon Tax

It’s a fundamentally libertarian policy – and one that tends to just piss people off, not invigorate them about the possibility of a just and sustainable future.

- James Wilt

On the morning of November 7, Maclean’s tweeted out the cover of its latest issue: a remarkably smug photo of the five Canadian political leaders who form the so-called “resistance” to the federal carbon tax plan. The quintet of conservative white men (Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe, Alberta’s Jason Kenney, Manitoba’s Brian Pallister, Ontario’s Doug Ford, and the federal Conservatives’ Andrew Scheer) collectively represent “Justin Trudeau’s worst nightmare,” according to the cover’s text.

It was immediately slammed. Harsha Walia of No One Is Illegal described the cover as a “billboard of conservative white male mediocrity still killing the planet.” Twitter users mocked its premise by replacing the faces of the politicians with those of characters from King of the Hill and The Simpsons, while others added captions like “50 Shades of Beige” and “If Transformers were just minivans.” Entire news articles were dedicated to chronicling the fallout, including one by Global News that deemed it a political milestone for Premier Moe.

But after the dust settled, the premise seemed to remain intact: Canadian climate policy is now being fought almost exclusively over carbon pricing, and a politician’s support for the policy is a barometer of their “belief ” in climate change. Four provinces – Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and New Brunswick – have already refused or dropped out of the carbon pricing scheme. At this point, it seems the tax may end up being the main talking point of both the upcoming Alberta and federal elections.

And that’s a huge concern from a climate change perspective, especially an explicitly leftist one.