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.
Print Edition - Section Front
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.

B.C. Carbon tax could be reversed.

Everyone is an environmentalist until it costs them! This is from the Globe and Mail.
It is rather surprising that the NDP should oppose the tax. Perhaps there was consultation. The government consulted environmentalists such as Jaccard and maybe the great guru Suzuki. Of course they did not consult the ordinary citizen. Now they are worried that the great beast of the general public may get restless and hard to control come election time.
Environmentalists are often themselves reasonably well off so the extra costs of some environmental policies may not impact on them to the degree it does on those less well off.




GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS
Carbon tax could be reversed, special adviser to Campbell fears
Political pressure might doom it, he says
IAN BAILEY
June 28, 2008
VANCOUVE -- Premier Gordon Campbell's special adviser on climate change says he fears critical and political pressure could prompt the Liberal government to back off the province's carbon tax.
Mark Jaccard, a noted resource economist at Simon Fraser University, made the comments in an interview yesterday shortly after he joined other academics at a news conference to argue for the tax linked to a 2.34-cent rise in gasoline prices on Canada Day. By 2012, the tax will be at seven cents a litre.
"I've seen politicians reverse themselves before after reading polls, so I want to see a good public discourse out there," Prof. Jaccard said. "I would say this is not a done deal at all."
Prof. Jaccard is a member of B.C.'s Climate Action Team, which was formed to provide feedback to the province's plan to cut greenhouse-gas emissions one-third by 2020. He is also a special adviser to the cabinet committee on climate action.
He did not disclose any insider information on the government's intentions, but said he thinks a reversal can't be ruled out as a possibility.
He noted that the Liberals are facing a provincial election next May. Mr. Campbell and his party will be seeking a third consecutive term, and the Premier has warned supporters that a loss of seven seats could plunge the party into opposition.
"If [the Liberal government] see that the NDP, by misinformation or whatever, have gotten hold of a policy that might just help them win an election, then I wouldn't be surprised if the government dropped it, and I think that would set us back a huge amount," he said.
Prof. Jaccard, a critic of the Liberals in the past, is a fan of the B.C. tax, calling it "the best carbon tax I have seen in the world."
Were he advising an NDP government, he said he would urge it to adopt the same tax. It will be applied to all fossil fuels, starting at $10 a tonne of carbon and rising by $5 a year for the next four years, capping out at $30 a tonne in 2012.
He described the opposition's objections, which have included an "Axe-the-Gas-Tax" campaign, as "political posturing" that has prompted him to speak out.
The NDP, which has decried the tax as developed without consultation and imposing an unfair cost on British Columbians, is calling on the Liberal government to withdraw it. NDP Leader Carole James repeated that suggestion yesterday in Williams Lake, where the mayor recently mused about having the community refuse to pay the tax on municipal energy bills as a form of protest.
But Mr. Campbell yesterday showed no signs of changing course.
The Premier took calls on Bill Good's morn