Preston Manning's appalling proposal
Peter Foster explains:
It sounds so simple. “We” need a fiscal system that produces more of
what we want – good, clean jobs — and less of what we don’t want, which
is “pollution.” Let’s call it an “ecofiscal” approach.
... we need a carbon tax. But since taxes have such a bad name, why not change the name to a carbon “levy”?
... Mr. Manning, who heads the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, is
also an advisor to the new, self-appointed Canadian Ecofiscal Commission, which aspires – like a cloister full of medieval scholastics
– to set a “just price” for industrial emissions and thus fine tune a
woefully inadequate market(ish) economy.
See also,
Terence Corcoran: Why the call for bigger and better carbon taxes is about to escalate
... A decade of bad policy, including Canada’s disastrous National Energy
Program, followed the first OPEC crisis. The challenge in 2014 is to
avoid making a new series of policy disasters.
oldwhiteguy says..... preston has lost his freaking mind.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteBilly says;
I think Vivian Krause should dig into the Manning Centers source of donations.
Preston Manning is has gone to the dark side.
Preston is Spock's Dad in old age.
ReplyDeletethis is interesting
ReplyDeleteconfidential plan to sabotage the oil sands
http://www.offsettingresistance.ca/TarSandsCoalition-StrategyPaper2008.pdf
fhl
This is far from the first time that Preston has demonstrated views and/or opinions that were not in the least conservative. It does seem that he is getting nuttier and nuttier with this latest bit of hog wash. He has clearly lost his way and can not be considered conservatative with any credibility. Perhaps it would be interesting to find out the sources of funding for his centre.
ReplyDeleteYou do have to wonder where Preston is coming from. Maybe it's as simple as Ezra Levant recently suggested - that he's still harbouring bitterness over being dumped from the Reform/Alliance leadership.
ReplyDeletePreston is correct and his view is consistent with being a Consevatie. Steven Harper held this view at one time until Stephan Dion made a thing of it. Then Harper flip flopped and was against it because it is a hard sell. Harper put his election campaign ahead off oodles policy. He wants to hold on to power at any cost.
ReplyDeleteA carbon tax provided the income and corporate tax cut is as big if not bigger is not totally a left wing idea. It was brought in BC under Gordon Campbell who few would call a left leaning premier and in fact although neutral in federal races, most likely voted Conservative. I don't think Manning has become a liberal more so as he probably realized from Reform's failure to get past the 20% mark, the party cannot ever form government and be ideologically pure.
ReplyDelete@ the two last anon. Carbon tax is most certainly left-wing which amounts to a big government big cash grab while doing absolutely nothing for the environment. It is not based on science as claimed. Taxing pixie dust would be the equivalent. Globalist/statists love this sort of thing which gives them more of our money to waste along with making government even bigger with yet more bureaucracy. I find no proof either of the claim that Harper supported this idea. What he has backtracked on since being in power is reducing the size of government and a few other things which were also truly conservative.
ReplyDeleteOne last thing is the claim that the BC Liberals even under Campbell are not left-wing. Just because they are not as far left as the BC NDP does not make them in the least conservative. They remain left of centre just not as far left as the NDP. Again it was used as a cash grab and has produced nothing whatsoever other than to make life more expensive for us along with giving the government more of our money to waste.
ReplyDeleteAlain - The BC Liberals in both the British Columbia and federal context would be centre-right. Under Campbell's first government they made big cuts which is not something a left wing government would do. Only a very tiny minority in BC think they are too left wing while a much larger share think they are too right wing. Last provincial election 48% voted for parties to the left while only 5% for those to the right. In 2009 50% voted for parties to the left while 2% to the right while in 2005 51% voted for parties to the left and less than 1% to the right so unless you are going to argue 90% of British Columbians are left wingers (and note under Harper the Conservatives have always performed above the national average in BC), then the argument holds no water. Maybe they aren't tea party right wing, or maybe left of centre by American standards, but guess what, this is Canada and only a tiny minority are right wing by American standards as we are a different country with different values. Yes we share a lot in common, but we are definitely tilted to the left.
ReplyDeleteAs for carbon tax, in order to fund the social programs we want, we need to have taxes somewhere and in BC, the cut to income taxes was as large as the carbon tax and verified by the auditor general. In fact BC's income taxes and corporate taxes are below the national average.
Pray tell what on earth has American politics or culture to do with what is conservative? You can argue all you want that the Liberal Party, be it provincial or federal is not left-wing, but it does not change the facts. Even the far-left NDP have been known to make cuts when in power, for the simply reason that there was no money left to do otherwise. It still does not make them right-wing: small government, individual freedom and responsibility, government not in bed with business, and a lot more. Also most Canadians outside the big urban areas still tend to hold these same values without being the least bit aware of the situation to the south. The chattering class in any country is not representative of the values and opinions of the people. Actually these values used to be represented by liberals, but then that was long ago.
ReplyDeleteAlain - The BC Liberals have always run on the platform of cutting the size of government and relative to other provinces they have. BC's government as a relative size of GDP is smaller than most provinces. As for the chattering classes vs. the rest, it's true many aren't as left wing as the chattering class, but that doesn't mean they are right wing. If they were as right wing as you say the BC Conservatives would have won the last provincial election but lost badly.
ReplyDeleteAlso if you compare to federal parties in Canada, the BC Liberals are not like the federal Liberals, they are to the right of them. They are to the left of the Conservatives, but around the same spot as the Mulroney PCs and to the right of the Joe Clark and Robert Stanfield PCs. Otherwise prior to 1993 there was no federal party that was to the right of them and the Reform party was stuck around 20%. In fact if you compare to other provincial parties they are around the same spot as the Alberta PCs under Prentice, Saskatchewan Party, Manitoba PCs, and CAQ while to the right of the Liberals in every other province and to the right of the Atlantic PCs. Only the Ontario PCs and WRA are further right and in the case of the former that will likely change when they chose their new leader as Hudak lost an easily winneable election for being too right wing.
When it comes to less government, the reality is most Canadians aren't interested in dramatically reducing the size of government so the term left vs. right is more right being those that cut or grow government at below inflation + economic growth + population growth while left is grow them faster than that. On individual freedom most Canadians value it as do most parties but also realize we are part of a greater community and libertarianism just doesn't work nor is it what most want. Just because you say they are left wing doesn't make them. Many on the left and unions call the BC Liberals far right, but that doesn't make them so. And yes the federal Liberals are centre-left, but federal Liberals and BC Liberals are separate parties. About 2/3 of BC Liberal party members are federal Conservatives while the federal Liberal vote splits pretty equally between the BC Liberals and BC NDP.