Liberal environment expert rejects carbon tax

Stephane Dion’s efforts to sell his carbon tax are under threat by revelations that advice Liberals obtained from an environmental expert strongly advised the party against the carbon tax Liberals are calling for today.

With a new poll showing widespread public scepticism about Dion’s marquee plan to pass a $40 a tonne carbon tax along to ordinary consumers, his sales pitch is being undermined by a report commissioned by the party which outright rejects carbon tax as a solution to climate change.

Described as “a name to watch in Liberal politics,” Désirée McGraw advised the Liberal Party against a carbon tax as chair of the Environment and Sustainable Development Taskforce commissioned by the party’s renewal process in 2006.

An environmentalist and lecturer on sustainable development, McGraw concludes on page 69 of her report that a carbon tax wouldn’t be necessary to meet Canada’s global GHG targets, preferring a cap and trade system like NDP leader Jack Layton is calling for instead.

In the report, McGraw says she came to this conclusion in part because for a carbon tax to be at all viable it would have to be “high enough to … ensure emission reductions.” To that point, a report by economist Marc Jaccard for the David Suzuki Foundation concluded that even at a $100 a tonne - $60 more than the Green Shift plan - a carbon tax still wouldn’t be high enough to meet Canada’s Kyoto commitment by 2020 – eight years after the Kyoto deadline.

Based on this analysis, at $40 a tonne, Dion's carbon tax is just not high enough to ensure critical and long overdue emissions reductions (which is why Dion's plan has no emissions reductions targets at all). It won't get us to the Kyoto targets, and won't get us to 80% below 1990 level by 2050 which scientists agree is necessary to prevent a climate catastrophe.

Instead of a carbon tax, the McGraw report says “Following extensive and intensive input from Taskforce contributors, this report opts for [a cap and trade] approach.”

Among the Taskforce contributors McGraw credits in helping her make her conclusion for cap and trade and against a carbon tax are the the late former Liberal environment minister Charles Caccia and then-Sierra Club head Elizabeth May.

Eight months ago, McGraw, who backed Dion for leader, was being touted as a potential candidate, saying the birth of her son “has deepened her dream since girlhood of becoming an MP.” And eight months ago, Stephane Dion was still dead set against a carbon tax.

Today, neither of those things are true.

Today, the Liberals find themselves in the inconvenient circumstance of having comissioned and accepted expert environmental advice in 2006, which is the same expert environmental advice which says Dion’s “Green Shift” won’t get the job done and Jack Layton’s plan will.

Firm that helps the environment to sue Liberals over plan that doesn’t

The brilliant strategists in the Liberal Party are at it again.

Get this: Stephen Harper is actually doing harm to our environment, but Liberals won’t lift finger one to defeat him.

Meanwhile, there is a little consulting firm that helps people do good things for the environment -- and the Liberals are gearing up to give them the fight of their lives!

Ontario-based company Green Shift announced today that it is preparing to go to court to defend its name against the Liberal Party of Canada.

“Jennifer Wright, the head of Green Shift Inc., told the Star today that her lawyers are drawing up a lawsuit claiming that the Liberals have stolen her company’s trademarked name and damaged the firm’s reputation.”

Less than the prospect of losing at least $2 million in damages, what hurts the Liberals most is that a company so closely associated with doing good things for the environment is claiming that association with the Liberals’ carbon tax scheme has “damaged the firm’s reputation”.

In the case of the People v. Posturing Environment Plan with No Targets to Reduce Emissions Whatsoever, the jury finds the defendant guilty of 15.5 billion counts of vacuousness and playing political games with the environment, your honour.

Monday's NDP web review

A couple of great NDP stories from this morning's quick review of the web ...

1) NDP nominates 40% women (so far): The folks who run the always thorough Pundit Guide are pointing to the fact that the NDP is now the only party to have passed the significant threshold of having 40% women candidates nominated for the next election (whenever Stéphane Dion is ready to start behaving like an opposition leader that is).

The current standings are:
NDP = 40.1% women nominated
Liberals = 37.3% women nominated
Conservatives = 17.2% women nominated

As is demonstrated here, each election since its founding, the NDP has run the highest number of female candidates of any major political party.

2) Steelworkers endorse Obama-Layton '08: La Presse reports that at their North American conference this weekend, delegates of the United Steelworkers of America made a joint endorsement of Jack Layton for Canadian Prime Minister and Barack Obama as US President.

Makes sense. The two are already sharing messaging. Who else noticed that Obama borrowed Layton's slogan for his Unity, NH rally with Clinton?

"Corny" Teneycke has been handed the conch

Is it at all worrisome to Conservatives that after having his foreign minister felled by an amateurish tom-foolery scandal, that the man Harper turns to to give his government a grown-up ready for prime-time look is the same guy responsible for this?

FIRST DIRECTIVE, OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS: All memos to cabinet to be marked "POP SECRET".

Ugh.

Two more NDP stars come forward: Award-winning journalist and former party leader to run

The Canada Day fireworks are long over, but the NDP keeps coming up with stars this week.

First came the announcement on Wednesday that Michael Byers - the premier critic of Harper’s foreign and defence policy - has decided to run for the NDP in Vancouver Centre. Even cynics acknowledged the magnitude of Byers lacing up for the NDP, given his formidable intellect and relentless critique of the Harper Conservatives.

But the good news keeps on coming, with two more amazing star candidates uniting with Jack Layton to take on Harper in the next election.

Anne Lagacé Dowson – the popular host of CBC Montreal’s radio noon show has stepped forward to carry the NDP colours in the Westmount-Ville Marie riding vacated by Lucienne Robillard. While the riding is nowhere near a certainty for the NDP, the star power of Lagacé Dowson is out of this world for the NDP in Quebec, which is one part of the “Outremont formula” that sent Thomas Mulcair to Ottawa last September. The NDP will make an attractive pitch to people in this English-speaking riding as Quebec remains the one part of the country where the legacy of the Sponsorship Scandal continues to hold the Liberals’ heads underwater.

Ray Martin – the only New Democrat MLA to ever have been Leader of the Official Opposition in Alberta is back to take on underwhelming Conservative backbencher Peter Goldring in Edmonton East. Martin remains very popular in Edmonton, having lost his seat by only the narrowest of margins earlier this year. Martin benefits from a few things: his strong name recognition, with Edmontnians having elected him four times; the strong campaign of Linda Duncan next door, who very nearly knocked off Rahim Jaffer in 2006; and the fact that Edmonton East is an Alberta seat the federal NDP has a history of having won. (Incidentally, a Martin win would finally give the NDP bragging rights over the Liberals as the caucus with the most “Martins” – Ray, Tony and Pat vs. Keith and some guy named Paul).

While the Jack Layton is building a stellar team to take on Harper in the next election, both Harper and Dion appear more focused on assembling their legal defence teams.

Harper-fighting commentator announces run with Layton’s NDP

The sycophantic sucking up to Guy Giorno by junior PMO staffers took a pause today as the Harperites shuddered with the news that their most credible critic on foreign policy and international law had announced his intention to be an NDP candidate in the next election.

(hat tip to Kady O’Malley, who notes with sarcasm the gallery’s obsession de jour with Giorno).

Within the too-thin ranks of Canadian thinkers, Michael Byers is a powerhouse – having unleashed a barrage of criticism on the Harper Conservatives by combining sharp intellect, recognized expertise on foreign policy as well as an appeal that has made him a frequent commentator on TV and print. Particularly at a time when the Harperites are floundering badly on foreign affairs, having Byers on the team is a huge boost for Layton’s critique.

Incidentally, the Byers announcement will also come as a blow to Stephane Dion. Not because Byers will be seeking the Vancouver Centre seat held by parliamentary underperformer and defective burning crosses detector Hedy Fry. And not because Liberals have been courting Byers with all the awkward deliberateness of the geeky kid in a John Hughes flick (note the Scott Brison joint in a recent National Post).

No, the hit to Dion came with Byers’ announcement that he’s joined the NDP becasue he disagrees with Dion’s targetless carbon tax:

"I’ve studied the various federal party policies on climate change. The NDP policy makes the most sense. And it respects individual citizens. The Liberals want to force Canadians to change their behaviour through taxes; the NDP wants to help Canadians to change with solutions."

Byers in short: if you don’t like Harper’s policies, and don’t think Dion should punish people who are already doing their part for the environment, your answer is the NDP.

Photo courtesy of UBC.

Harper Liberals go wild against Morgentaler appointment

No surprise that a few flat-earthers on the extreme right are upset over the announcement that pro-choice pioneer Henry Morgentaler has been named to the Order of Canada.

But has anyone else noticed just how many of them are so called “Harper Liberals” – Liberal MPs who share the same social conservative values as Harper’s backbench?

Hey, look, there’s Dan McTeague:

“Liberal MP Dan McTeague said Dr. Morgentaler is a very controversial person and if he is admitted to the order, it will polarize Canadians.” The Governor-General and the committee advising on appointments to the Order of Canada have always been careful in the past not to choose people who were controversial or who would not be unanimously celebrated by all Canadians, Mr. McTeague said. "It's more of a social statement rather than the usual apolitical decisions," he said. "There will be people who cheer what he has done. There will be others who fundamentally disagree with what he represents."

And there’s Paul Steckle (in a quote that appeared in the print edition, yet oddly missing from globeandmail.com):

“Liberal MP Paul Steckle said, “It diminished in my mind what we think the Order of Canada stood for.”

Now not all Liberals are "Harper Liberals" of course, but when you hear Liberals rail violently against Harper’s so-con agenda, is it wrong to expect all of them to sound like NDP MP Olvia Chow who said: “It's a great celebration,” she said. “We can be very proud that Henry Morgentaler after all these years of struggle for a woman's right to choose finally being recognized”?

Just like it was on gay marriage, when it comes to a womans right to choose, Liberal branding and Liberal reality can't exist in the same room.

Regrettably, the braying at the moon is destined only to get louder once reporters remember the fundamentalist and "I don't think a woman has a frivolous right to choose" agenda of Stephane Dion’s candidate in Central Nova.

Stay tuned.