Stephane Dion’s Green Shift proposal may not only cost him his job, but could also be one of the worst ideas ever developed by the Liberal Party of Canada.
Over the last year, the leader of the Liberals Stephane Dion has created a carbon tax plan entitled Green Shift. At the end of the process, they have presented one of the most involved election platforms in recent history. This Green Shift has become so complicated and complex that even Dion himself struggles to explain the plan.
After taking the initiative in creating the Internet (or so he claims) and acting as vice president, Al Gore brought the world’s attention to a small phenomenon you may have heard of: global warming. In order to tackle this supposed problem, Dion has decided to use taxes as a vehicle to lower carbon emissions. Dion believes people will shift from high to low levels of energy consumption if he increases taxes on high-energy consuming activities.
Dion’s carbon tax will be imposed on all Canadians, rich and poor alike– 11.3 cents a liter for gas, $1.09 on a tank of propane, and taxes on almost every other energy product. At first glance, this doesn’t seem too harmful. However, all energy goods are major inputs for the entire economy. Consequently, the carbon tax would increase prices on everything: food, shelter, transportation, et cetera.
Increasing prices on high carbon emitting products is the main idea behind a carbon tax, but if all prices increase, no shifting will occur. Even the cleanest items like organic vegetables will be subject to a carbon tax– they must be shipped to the grocery store somehow. As such, the Green Shift will put a gigantic tax on everything, far from the original goal of taxing only carbon emissions.
Further, the explicit tax individuals will pay is so little that there will be negligible changes in behavior. It is inconceivable that people will forgo having a BBQ because of a $1 tax on a propane tank or avoid driving after paying an extra $4 per tank of gas.
Empirically, over the last four years, the price of gas has increased dramatically, but there have been only minute changes in the amount of gas consumption. Energy is necessary for survival. As a result, precipitous price increases would be required to alter people’s consumption patterns. Hardly the small yet still damaging taxes proposed in the Green Shift.
In all fairness, Dion does promise to return the revenues to citizens in the form of tax cuts. But governments promised to cancel the GST, end hallway medicine and conveniently broke many other promises. Excuse me for being cynical.
The Liberal’s Green Shift is environmentally futile and politically dense.
If one wants to support a party which is serious about the environment, then they must look at the NDP or the Green Party. They have plans with far more onerous carbon taxes and carbon trading schemes which, unlike the Green Shift, may actually reduce emissions. Although their plans will punish the economy, at least they accomplish what they set out to do.
It must be very difficult for Liberal volunteers to knock on doors and say, “Hi, my name is (insert Liberal volunteer’s name here) and I want to encourage you to vote for Stephane Dion. In case you are not aware, he wants to increase taxes, but not quite high enough to actually reduce emissions.” Sounds like a pretty tough script.
‘It is mesmerizing, formerly such a smart political party, one that has dominated the halls of government in recent memory, now seems so lost. With the Green Shift being the Liberals’ keystone policy, those who have strong convictions about the environment may shift to parties offering plans than can actually accomplish those goals, the NDP and Greens. Others who put the environment on a lower priority level might go to the Conservatives. In attempting to create a policy framework to please everyone, Dion might have accidentally concocted the antithesis.