Politicians eye B.C. as Canada's first carbon tax kicks in

It remains to be seen how green the general populace is onçe being green begins to hit them in the pocketbook. Although the tax is supposed to be revenue neutral the pain at the pump will probably not appear very neutral. The NDP seems to be taking a dangerous path in opposing what many environmentalists support. They may lose their own supporters without gaining any support from those who agree with them. They may simply support the Conservatives.


Politicians eye B.C. as Canada's first carbon tax kicks in
DAVID EBNER
July 2, 2008
VANCOUVER -- The price of gasoline shot to $1.50 a litre in Vancouver yesterday as British Columbians became the first Canadians to deal directly with a carbon tax.
The extra 2.34 cents a litre for regular gasoline has caused consternation among the majority of voters - highlighting the challenge of carbon-pricing politics.
For B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell, who faces an election next May, and others pushing green policies such as federal Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, it is the hardest political sell of this generation. Canadians say the environment is a priority, but polls also indicate voters are worried about expensive energy as the price of oil soars.
Yesterday was Day 1 of B.C.'s carbon tax, applied to fossil fuels including gasoline and diesel, as well as to natural gas and home-heating fuel, and paid by individual and business purchasers.
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The new levy on gasoline, to rise to about 7 cents a litre in 2012, has attracted the most attention from the NDP's "axe-the-tax" campaign and media headlines such as: "Taxman getting fat on high gas prices."
In B.C., among voters familiar with the carbon-tax proposal, opinion is now roughly evenly split, according to research firm Innovative Research Group Inc., down from support of about two-to-one in favour after it was announced in February.
Other pollsters have found B.C. residents are generally against the tax, with three in five opposing it in an Ipsos-Reid poll in June.
Politicians have to aggressively and emotionally sell green policies to succeed, said Greg Lyle, a pollster at Innovative Research.
He added that even though Mr. Dion's proposal doesn't include a hit at the gas pump for consumers, because it pins the cost on big businesses, voters see a "tax as a tax." The challenge for Mr. Campbell in B.C. is the same as that facing Mr. Dion, he suggests.
"Number one, you've got to defend the idea," Mr. Lyle said. "There's only so much news in this that is good news. The reality is that a lot of this is bad news in the headlines. [Mr. Dion] has to fight this on an emotional level.
"He can't fight on the specific details of his program. He has to fight on the broader need for it, on why he's doing this. And he has to sound like he cares. That's what Gordon Campbell has to do, too."
Environmentalists want Mr. Campbell to "more vigorously" defend the policy against the NDP and said voters will be favourable if they can see that the money is going to things such as better public transit.
"[A carbon tax] is [a] tough political step to take but it is good policy," said analyst Matt Horne at Pembina Institute, an environmental research group.
The risk of an increasingly agitated public, as the economy weakens and gasoline gets more expensive, is big enough that Mark Jaccard, a resource economist at Simon Fraser University, worried publicly last week that the Campbell government might back down on it.