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I once had high hopes that the Green party would do what Coyne wants his new party to do: move beyond the traditional tribalism of left and right and create smart, serious evidence-based policy. Occasionally, the Greens do that, as in 2007, when the Ontario Greens were the only party to suggest the only sensible solution to the Catholic schools debate: public schools should be secular. The Greens will champion evidencebased no-brainers that other parties won’t: the carbon tax, for example. In editorial board meetings with the Citizen, some Green candidates have even said smart things about supply management in Canadian agriculture, which Coyne raises as an example of a policy everyone knows is bad but no one with power will risk changing.

But I’m afraid I share Coyne’s fear that the Greens aren’t serious enough to make a revolution happen. Take, for example, their recent ad criticizing attack ads. They’re on the side of the angels, as far as I’m concerned; most attack ads reflect politicians’ assumption that people are stupid about policy, and they’re on their way to becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. But the Green party sometimes succumbs to the knee-jerk reaction, cribbed perhaps from the NDP, that if something is bad it should be banned. It isn’t enough to mock attack ads; the Greens also want a ban on political television advertising, a form of censorship that makes no sense in the Internet age and is an undue restriction on expression.

The NDP has yet to realize that the only way to protect the working classes in the long-term is to successfully mitigate climate change.

BC liberal forestry policy has seriously increased Co2 emissions in that sector. Even with taxes imposed, you really need to read road subsidies for trucking as the opposite of carbon taxes – carbon anti-taxes if you will.

The BC liberals plan to double the lions gate bridge, to double the Vancouver Port traffic by freeing up road transport will seriously increase Co2 emissions associated with transportation in BC. Whether the carbon taxes will offset that or not, it’s hard to see how they are “forward looking” if you see the big picture.

That being said, the NDP may have the worst environmental platform of any Canadian political party. I think this is the product of their political philosophy basically being a few decades old, and not having been updated significantly since climate change and the environment generally became politically salient issues.

Did you like paying 5000$ tuition? Do you like the liberals forest policies – do you think those were carbon friendly? Do you like trucking subsidies? Do you support the liberals on the BC medical act which attempted to legislate away a union’s collective agreement (the Supreme Court struck down the union-busting parts of this law as unconstitutional).

I see the federal liberals as a serious political option, but not the British Colombian “liberals”.

That seems like a one-plank view if ever I did see. So, you’re fine with neo-liberalism so long as it imposes carbon taxes – even if those taxes are below the level where they will make a difference?

The Canadian province of British Columbia has a carbon tax that is not yet a year old and already it is on thin ice. First announced during the delivery of the 2008 budget and implemented July 1, 2008, British Columbia`s carbon tax policy came as a surprise to many observers in the Canadian environmental field and was considered a significant shift in policy on climate change for the Government of British Columbia. The orgin of the policy is thought to be as a result of the direct influence of Gordon Campball, Premier of British Columbia, who has been strongly influenced by the ‘green’ California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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In the short-term a scheduled provincial election on May 12, 2009 could result in a complete overturning or re-shaping of the policy should the Liberal Party of British Columbia – the incumbent party who proposed and implemented the policy – lose the election. The current opposition party, the New Democratic Party of British Columbia, has opposed the policy and the latest public opinion data suggests that a 55% majority of British Columbians oppose the carbon tax measure. Without the support of a broad, multi-party coalition, the future of the British Columbia carbon tax remains unclear in the immediate future.

Canada to study economic impact of climate change

It’s hard to know whether to celebrate or to weep.

CanWest News Services reporter Mike de Souza has learned that the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper is calling for a lightning fast (eight-week), bargain basement ($40,000) report on the potential economic impacts of climate change in Canada.

We certainly laud the Prime Minister’s sudden interest, but if this is anything more than a public relations exercise designed to lobby the anti-science cohort in his own caucus, it is an affront – so terribly inadequate to the task as to only further humiliate Canada on the international stage.

“While acknowledging the left was instrumental in creating many of the social programs Canadians have come to trust – many of today’s emerging progressives see a left that is often loath to reform or rethink them in the face of globalization, the telecommunication revolution, and a changing citizenry. In the last election voters faced an ideological paradox. The more left the advocates, the more entrenched they were against innovation and reform, even when such reforms would serve progressive values.

Seen this way, the NDP’s vision is in many ways a conservative one – a vision of Canada locked in the 1960s or worse, the 1930s. This conservatism of the left – even if found under one tent – will not inspire forward looking progressives, or Canadians in general.”