Canada’s phoney debate about carbon taxes
In the Ontario Progressive Conservative leadership race, all four candidates hoping to replace Patrick Brown oppose carbon taxes, a centrepiece of Brown’s platform. The federal Conservative Party also opposes carbon taxes.
Some commentators see this as a betrayal of Conservative free-market instincts because (supposedly) our choice is between inefficient bureaucratic regulation and the enlightened Liberal approach of using price signals to hit greenhouse gas targets. According to this reasoning, economically-literate Conservatives should prefer the latter.
But in reality, Canadians have been offered no such choice. We face the Conservative option of costly and inefficient regulations, and the Liberal package of even costlier and more inefficient regulations, with new taxes on top.
It’s dismaying how many commentators who should know better think that the shiny paint of carbon taxes somehow fixes the underlying policy defects.