Trying to get Canadians to agree to a carbon tax must be for Justin Trudeau like trying to roll a massive boulder, or Doug Ford, up a steep hill.
The country is hooked on oil, many Canadians love their cars, or their big shiny trucks, almost as much as they love their children.
A Con cabal of climate change deniers is doing all it can to sabotage the Liberal government's carbon tax plans, and drive them from power, by whatever low means necessary.
And as we all know, Andrew Scheer is apparently planning to make the carbon tax issue, THE issue of the election campaign.
Or in his angry nerd fantasy, Trudeau's hill to die on.
And as if the stakes weren't high enough, as Adam Radwanski writes, the whole world is watching.
For those who believe carbon pricing is urgently needed to fight climate change, Canada will be one of the world’s most important battlegrounds in 2019.
More than that, the campaign will serve as a case study about carbon taxation’s political viability, sure to be noticed by politicians elsewhere considering similar measures.
If Trudeau prevails his victory will encourage other beleaguered carbon tax supporters all over our burning planet. If he loses, Scheer and the other climate criminals will use their victory to demoralize the planet's defenders.
If Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives drive him from office after one term, with carbon-tax opposition playing a major role, he could join the likes of France’s Emmanuel Macron as a cautionary tale about even the most skilled politicians not being able to sell this sort of policy.
And as a license to torch the future with impunity.
To make matters even scarier, the outcome will depend on so many things:
Will Canadians choose short term greed over the future of their children? Will they believe Scheer when he lies like a thief?
Will our shabby shuffling media look on and do nothing?
Or allow the Cons to turn climate change into a joke...
And will next summer will be hot or not?
If next summer is like the last, with rampant wildfires and other disasters amid blazing-hot temperatures, the planet’s future may be more on voters’ minds than if it has been mild.
But at least at this point, polls suggest most Canadians like the Trudeau plan and its rebates.
Some in the media are starting to remind them that Scheer has no plan, and that his promise that his plan won't cost Canadians anything is just an attempt to fool them.
If it’s worth anything (and Scheer promises his plan will include “meaningful reductions” in carbon emissions), it will have to require industry and consumers to change their behaviour, and that will come along with its own costs. The difference is they’ll likely be hidden and hard to calculate, and likely wrapped in rhetoric about making “big business” rather than “ordinary Canadians” carry the freight.
Some stubborn facts can’t be avoided: climate change must be tackled, and one way or another that will come with costs we all must pay.
As only a Con artist could...
And that him and his Cons are babbling incoherently:
On the one hand, they say, the Liberal plan is a tax grab. On the other, since 90 per cent of what’s collected by Ottawa will be rebated back to taxpayers and most will actually come out ahead, it amounts to “bribing people with their own money.” Again, on the one hand a levy of $20 a tonne to start is an onerous “tax on everything.” At the same time, they insist, it’s a paltry amount that won’t cut GHG emissions nearly enough. As the old joke goes, the food here is terrible — and such small portions!
As only Con clowns can.
And then there's the old oil pimp Joe Oliver, making them all look like kooks...
Oh look, new from Postmedia. Joe Oliver says we don't need a carbon tax because CO2 is the "source of life," nobody calls water hydrogen, and we can't be "polluted" by drinking carbonated beverages. What? https://t.co/17l7BOISnG #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/2BQmI5Q253— Simon (@montrealsimon) January 5, 2019
Which is, at this point in human history, what all climate change deniers are, or soon will be seen to be.
So while the denier in chief Andrew Scheer may be claiming victory already, I beg to disagree.
A year from now I plan on celebrating the fact that Canada is doing its part to help fight global warming. And that Andrew Scheer and his ghastly Cons are a thing of the past, and are no longer threatening our country and its precious values #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/dM5RAedXud— Simon (@montrealsimon) January 6, 2019
Justin Trudeau has the weight of the world on his shoulders...
It is his fate, whether he likes it or not.
But failure is not an option.
And the future is on his side...
22 comments:
The sad irony Simon is that the bulk of the campaign will be right in the middle of another summer of severe fires in the west, heat waves and floods in the east and probably a recession. Calgary will be in the midst of a flood or socked in by BC smoke when Scheer is there doing his anti carbon tax routine and hopefully Kenney will have lost the provincial election (one can sure hope can't they?) Getting more difficult every year to write the events off as the once-in-every-500 years.
"As the old joke goes, the food here is terrible — and such small portions!"
It's pretty bad when The Con lies start contradicting each other but when you mass produce them it's bound to happen and further weakens their stance.
Information campaigns need to be brought to the forefront to highlight the thousands of reputable scientists and organizations around the world who's research leaves no doubt that climate change is happening and something needs to be done NOW to reduce carbon emissions and the consensus is that a carbon tax is the most viable place to start.
This should really be a no-brainer but when you have the Cons repeating their lies over and over again and an irresponsible MSM who should be warning Canadians of the perils of climate change but are not, then it's understandable that low information Canadians are confused.
As for the Con base, they are a lost cause who would deny their children a future just to spite JT. How selfish and moronic is that? These fuckers aren't worth the mouth breathing carbon they emit let alone their big four by fours that they feel should be heard from 5KM away with their obnoxious mufflers and equally obnoxious drivers.
It is as you say JT's fate, Simon. And I believe he will emerge the winner because he has the countless experts in his corner and Scheer's "scientific evidence" that emanates from the bowels of the rebel and hacks like Lorrie Goldstein will never convince decent Canadians that the way to go is the Andy Doolittle way.
JD
The RCMP needs to break up this yellow vest shit. It's got SFA to do with carbon taxes a/k/a "economic anxiety," and everything to do with threatening Justin Trudeau's life and that of his family members. The "rationale," if you can call it that, is: the Cons know that #WeakAndy is a putz who can't govern, so they just want him to displace Trudeau and keep the seat warm for awhile until Adolf Harper makes his grand re-entrance to take his place on the golden throne among his fellow admired dictators like Orbán, Salman, Bibi and of course Putin. (Or even Trump, if he goes through with this "national emergency" martial law shit about the WALL.) In Scheer's case I guess it would be "Marshall law."
What they don't want is for history to repeat itself, as they know full well that Pierre sat in opposition for a good six months when Joe Clark won the 1979 election, and then finished out his last term through 1984. Their goal is to salt the earth so that Justin can't return ANYWHERE ever again. And to frighten any of the children into abandoning the family business if they were to hope for a three-peat when they got older. What the Romans used to call a damnatio memoriae. Notice, you haven't seen any presidents Kennedy since 1963 and the Facebook terrorists want to ensure the same result in Canada. Lock them up.
All this so they can maintain their irrational fantasy of making six fig on the rig with a high school education. Yeah, not going to happen. But it won't stop Scheer, Kenney, Ford and whoever else Harper and his backers have in their bag of plastic action figures -- like these yellow-vested deplorables -- from attempting to make it the hill that Justin Trudeau is LITERALLY forced to die on.
Oil really does pollute everything. As I pointed out earlier: that little girl from Norway is so correct when she says the adults in the room aren't mature enough to tackle this crisis the way it needs to be. What kind of world are we living in where the kids have to tell the "grownups" to put their toys away and clean up the mess they've made, but instead, they throw a tantrum and resolve to kill the teacher?
Are those idiots really going to go through with their Kudatah Konvoy Karavan in the middle of February to go honk their horns outside of Parliament? I guess they don't have much love to spare for Valentine's Day. Incels, probably, like their hero Kluless Klutz Kenney. Maybe it's time for Ottawa to build a sound-proof wall (or concrete playpen) around the crying brats in Oilberta and make the Konservative Kash Koffers pay for it.
I even saw a handful of trolls proposing to reschedule their pathetic LARP of Smokey & The Bandit, so that it would coincide with Ella's birthday and they could show the little girl "what her daddy has done." Leave the kids out of it. God, these assholes are the scum of the earth. I almost think they should go to school in Switzerland or Paris or something or wherever George and Charlotte are right now, so they don't have to bear witness to this perverted fever of hate.
These fuckers aren't worth the mouth breathing carbon they emit let alone their big four by fours that they feel should be heard from 5KM away with their obnoxious mufflers and equally obnoxious drivers.
To paraphrase Gene Wilder in Blazing Saddles:
"You've got to remember that these are just simple fu -- er, truckers. These are the people of the (stolen) land, the common tar clumps of the secessionist West.
You know... morons."
Even more than Scheer, Joe Oliver should be the poster boy for the Con climate change deniers. I’ve heard many screwy reasons for denying reality, but Oliver’s is the craziest. How can a supposedly educated man say such stupid things? And what can we expect from the ignorant?
People do make "6 figures on a rig with a high school education" and there is nothing wrong with it. It is part of what makes Canada what it is. Back in the 1960s/70s the working class in Canada, became the middle class. All the trappings of the middle class is what the working class had back then, the summer cabin, two vehicles, children in university and going to Europe. There is nothing wrong with trying to hang on to that. Its a good idea. We don't live in poverty. the oil companies make enough money, at least with high salaries people get some of it.
Companies pay these salaries because if they don't they'll find they have a unionized work force. Here in Canada, part of why the working class became the middle class is simply, Unions were more powerful here than they were in the U.S.A. In Canada Teachers' Unions ensure teachers start at approx. $70K. Not in the U.S.A. Police Departments, similar and except for the RCMP who make approx. $20K less. Basically nurses, teachers, cops, fire fighters, start some where between $55K and go up to $90K. Long shoreman, similar. Most trades, similar.
However, some are trying to convince the oil patch workers they're going to be working for something close to min. wage if they don't do these protests. I believe Scheer and his Cons are using oil patch people in their quest for office. I also believe there is much more at play here, i.e. false information by Face Book, etc. At last nights news, they were reporting on the "yellow vest" protests in Manitoba. It was quite funny to see all those heavy duty trucks and expensive vehicles wasting all that gas. but something has them frightened and uninformed. One man was on t.v. decrying the millions of unemployed in the country. he doesn't seem to know we have the lowest unemployment rate in 43 years right now. He didn't seem to know that in B.C. we have a shortage of workers to such a degree resturants are shortening hours and some of them are willing to pay $20 an hr. All sorts of positions are available in B.C. and that includes police officers and teachers. It doesn't take much to get a person from the oil patch to university to become a teacher. But some thing has them very scared and I think most of it can be found on line.
They blame Trudeau for the lack of a pipeline to the west coast. Well the problem isn't Trudeau, its me and my neighbours who don't want that pipeline to the west coast. We live on the west coast. We're seeing killer whales starving to death, currently also, due to a lack of salmon. Yes, a lack of salmon so many couldn't fish this summer to preserve the salmon for the whales. Our hump back whales are making a come back and we don't want them killed off by an oil/tar/bitemen spill. It isn't if, its when. At least of these tankers will go to China per day, under the new pipeline plan. why should we on the west coast have our environment destroyed for China's economic gain. What would make much more sense is a refinery in Alberta which provides Canadian with jobs and oil so billions don't go out of country to Saudi Arabia. Why sell tar to China while they arrest and detain two of our citizens.
Corporations have the most to loose if Carbon Taxes become a reality. When people see their country/economy don't fall apart, governments will expand carbon pricing and the people who want that least are corporations. People, once they get used to carbon taxes may actually stop shopping for some items and some of them are imported. How would that impact China?
This yellow jacket thing started in France. France of all places one of the European countries which have it made. Social services for almost everything. Where do we see the riots? In the cities. However, we hear the real impact will be felt in the rural areas where people have to commute. then both here and there we start to hear the complaints about immigrants. That is part of the real issue. They are starting the politics of division.
In B.C. we're actually bringing in people to work because we don't have enough people to take the service industry jobs.
What is going to happen in the Prairies has happened in other parts of Canada in the past. the global economy shifts and we find ourselves playing catch up. it happened in Winnipeg, Vancouver, and Montreal when
the clothing industry went off shore. People had to find new jobs and re train. when the cod fishery collapsed in the Maritimes it was awful and changed the area permanently. In B.C. in the 1970s and early 80s our forest industry took a nose dive from which they didn't recover, mills closed, loggers laid off. On Vancouver Island the first food banks in Canada were established to deal with the lack of money for families to buy food with. times change, the economy changes, there are global shifts. We need to change with the times, but the roll of government is to ensure people are able to make those changes.
The protestors in Manitoba were complaining about taxes. What would they like to give up that the government provides with those tax dollars? Not one of them has thought that through. They just have been sold on the carbon tax will bankrupt them or something close to it.
As the saying goes: I like taxes, they buy me a civilized society. Corporations don't like taxes. it eats into the executive bonuses. If taxes are so high, why aren't Canadians in other places protesting them? We have had carbon pricing in B.C. for over a decade and our economy is doing fine, even if it was based on money laundering for the previous 16 years with the B.C. Lieberals, allegedly.
The people of Manitoba and Alberta might want to look around and see how they can change things, not fight them. if you learn the only constant in this society is change, you will be better to off adjusting to it. Alberta, has a lot of technical degree people. They could easily start marketing themselves as the next tech province. Micro soft has been moving into Vancouver for years now. why not Calgary. Winnipeg, Manitoba used to be a major manufacturing center in Canada. why not again? Not the cheap stuff coming in from abroad, but the quality items some of us want from Germany. Box stores sell cloths from over seas. But when you go into small shops, you'll find lots of clothing made in Canada, for women. Its the big corporations who benefit most from trying to keep things the same. If that pipeline goes through to B.C. who will really benefit? China and corporations. yes, the workers, but at some point we as a society will shift away from oil, so why not get with the agenda early and set your own time lines.
Excuse me Jackie Blue, but how are people whose voice is not heard, to get their point across? Trudeau rules by decree whether he has a mandate or not. He is dangerous, a bumbling idiot, and he needs to be stopped. I plan to have my yellow vest on when the convoy reaches Toronto. It's the only way to register distain for a government that distains its own citizens.
Just another dose of Con propaganda amplified by the press for income. Its the classic use of exaggeration and repetition to peddle the propaganda.
Carbon pricing is a non event and designed to mildly nudge Canadians away from fossil fuels but to listen to the Cons its the end of the world. Most provinces already have carbon pricing in some form. Ontario had the cap and trade equivalent until Doug the thug broke contracts and scrapped it at a legal cost still to be determined. The dark clouds did not descend when cap and trade was implemented and the sun did not shine when it was nullified. Bigger unrelated economic mishaps happened such as GM plant closures, commodity tariffs and trade uncertainty but instead of looking at the real issues the Carbon Gang try and replicate the experience the Venezuelans had with an oily one trick pony. A brief behind the scenes phone conversation between Trump and his buddies will impact oil prices and our economic well being far more than carbon pricing but the Cons chose to weaponize it for political gain with the support of the hapless media in order to boost sales.
Alberta is selling 4 million barrels of oil per day and claim to be more desperate and poorer than when they were selling 1 to 2 million barrels in past decades. Is it possible there is more at play than carbon pricing and pipelines? Why don't the Con's ask some of the failed oil producing countries as well as success stories such as Norway what they think? Unfortunately that wont happen as bullshit and cheap propaganda is much easier.
RT
And I hope the RCMP is waiting for you when you get there. You are part of a racist, violent movement that has welcomed white supremacists and QAnon cultists into its ranks, and openly called numerous times for killing the Prime Minister. He has done more for Alberta than any other PM, and at considerable political capital and risks to his personal security. The Liberal government "disdains its own citizens"? You're the ones who want him to basically Trump style, executive order ram the pipeline through without consultations to First Nations, and at the same time throw the dwellers on the BC coastline under the bus. Yet he "rules by decree" when he won't circumvent the law to appease a handful of complainers, who still don't appreciate ANYTHING he does because they're fixated on his last name? And who respond by threatening to "Brexit" the province (and disregard Indigenous title claims) and murder him?
Put down the CRACK pipe and get out of your oil bubble for five minutes. If you did, you'd realize why the rest of Canada is losing any respect or sympathy they might have had for you, just like Americans are sick and tired of having to bend the knee for the "coal country" dinosaurs who voted for Trump. The planet is at risk, there are nine other provinces that Trudeau also has to govern for, and all you can think of is yourselves. And the Oswald LARP fantasies you indulge in when you don't get your way.
I hope you do wear your cosplay hall-monitor uniform. I hope it still fits since the last time you wore it before dropping out of grade 8. Just like MAGA hats and brown shirts, it'll make it all that much easier to identify who the Rebel stormtroopers are. May the Farce Be With You.
when Doug Ford does something arbitrary and undemocratic, its the will of the people his mandate. When Justin does something that has passed through the house after years of consulting its a decree. A Carbon tax means in the long run you pay less not more for energy. How to explain this to knuckle draggers is the difficult part.
well said.
Summer 2019 to be the "hottest ever on record"..........The Age of Rage is upon us.
Hi Trevor
Autocrats rule by decree by overriding a countries democratic institutions designed to protect it citizens. In my view Harper was Canada's first small time autocrat who continually either downsized resisting institution, continually challenged the supreme court, fired public servants who disageed with him and demanded loyalty or face the consequence from his associates ( eg Duffy). Trudeau is a team player and although you may disagree with his agenda it is constructed within the moral and legal bounds of our democratic system. He is far from an autocrat.
What is your viewpoint based on?
RT
Hi bcwaterboy....I have to confess that I will be hoping for the hottest summer ever, even though the heat usually flattens me like a pancake. And the reason is that's the only way many Canadians will pay attention to climate change. If they do Scheer and his Con climate change deniers will be vanquished. On the other hand if there is a recession that could favour the Cons. Even though if Scheer takes over, we are going to see a government even more reactionary than the Harper regime and even more incompetent. We live in dangerous times...
Hi JD...Scheer has five children, and still he seems to have no qualms torching their future and the future of all the others. I will never understand how somebody could be that selfish. But that is the Con credo, short term greed before all else. And as you point out, as long as the media doesn't help educate low information voters the Cons can fool them into believing anything. As I said in my post, I am hopeful that reason will prevail, but we are going to have to work really hard to counter the Con propaganda...
Hi Jackie...Yes, those yellow bellies are a reactionary group. They are apparently fighting among themselves, but some of their statements should definitely attract the attention of the RCMP. I don't know when threatening the prime minister became normalized, but it's got to stop. And as for targeting Trudeau's children, it's beyond disgusting. Some Cons are absolute animals and if this country is to survive they must be crushed beyond recognition...
Hi Jackie...oil does pollute everything, a country's air and its politics. And most of the stench is coming from Alberta. I try to be sympathetic to the cause of those who have lost their jobs. But their incessant whining and blaming others is getting on my nerves, and I'm sure I'm not the only one in central and eastern Canada who just wishes they would shut up. They seem to be saying we shouldn't worry about climate change, just worry about poor them, and good luck with that one..
Hi anon...Joe Oliver was, is, and will always be a joke. Who can forget how he used to label environmental activists "terrorists" or would go on about how the water from reclaimed tarry ponds was clean enough to drink? The man lost his credibility and his moral compass a long time ago, and should retire as soon as possible...
Hi e.a.f...Alberta is still the wealthiest province in Canada, a lot of its problems stem from they fact they don't tax themselves enough. And as for Albertans claiming that it's all Justin Trudeau's fault, that's not just absurd, it's insane. Trudeau could simply ignore that province since since it only elects Cons, but he has bent backwards to try to accommodate their demands for a pipeline to the Pacific, even at the risk of losing support in B.C., but still those oil Cowboys aren't satisfied. The future is green, whether they like it or not, and it's time they realized that the good old days are never coming back...
Hi Trevor....the idea that Trudeau is dangerous and rules by decree is absurd, and is the sort of nonsense that is contributing to the violent rhetoric aimed at our prime minister. As far as I'm concerned many of those so-called yellow vest freaks are potential terrorists and need to be arrest and jailed. And where did you get your yellow vest from, the Rebel shop? I ask because I note they are sold out, so clearly Ezra Levant is the big winner, and that should tell you something...
Hi RT...honestly, sometimes I feel like I'm living in some idiot paradise. Alberta is still pumping out and incredible amount of tarry stuff and still they want to pollute the earth further, in the name of short term greed. They don't collect enough royalties from the oil companies, they don't tax their own citizens enough, and for all intents and purposes they act like a banana republic. I don't care what they have to say to themselves or the federal government, but they should leave the rest of us out of it..?
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