David Frum Advocates A Green Shift

Today’s lower prices, welcome though they are, threaten to halt the progress away from oil.

The answer is to prevent the cost of oil to the consumer from declining any further. Let consumers pocket and benefit from the decline to US$65. Then impose a stand-by excise tax on any further declines. If oil goes to US$64, the government taxes $1. If the decline continues to $63, $2. And so on.

Consumers will continue to substitute away from oil. Manufacturers will be induced to continue investing in efficiency. Homebuilders will continue to shift to smaller, more centrally located development. Revenues to the governments of producing nations will be squeezed. Revenues to the governments of consuming nations will rise -- and those governments should use the new tax to cut other taxes, especially taxes on work, saving and investment. I’d nominate the corporate income tax as the first tax to cut -- and ideally eliminate.

Before you faint, Frum has been trying to get his fellow conservatives to take AGW seriously, and has in fact been advocating a carbon tax coupled with cuts to other taxes, for a number of years now. Mind you, he went totally quiet on the issue during our recent election campaign.

Funny, that.

And Here's The Context

...for this:

"He was asked by a reporter why he was avoiding using the phrase “Green Shift” since it was a central plank in the Liberal platform.

“You have said it was — never me,” he said. “I always said it was an important policy for Canada. I would strongly believe it will be good for our country.”

Dion said the key to keeping Canada competitive in the 21st century is to produce more but use less in sectors, including agriculture.

“Green Shift is part of the solution, but the solution is the overall plan of the Liberal government,” he said"

I suppose we can quibble over the meaning of "central", but what this clearly shows is that Dion was merely situating The Green Shift within the context of the overall Liberal plan, not abandoning it. What it also shows is that the Winnipeg Sun reportedly story more accurately than the TO Star. Who could have imagined the day?

Not Helpful

There are other things in the Lib platform besides The Green Shift, and strategically it makes a fair bit of sense to start emphasizing them. But having

Green Shift not major platform plank, Dion says

...on the top of The TO Star is really, really not helpful. I would like to know what

"You have said it was but never me," Dion told reporters.

...was in response to, because I suspect The Star is probably mis-representing the context of Dion's answer. If not, then someone should give our boy a punch in the mouth. I mean, as far as I can recall, the "green farming" measures Dion introduced today are a part of The Green Shift package. Announce them while at the same time dumping on the plan as a whole?

That doesn't really make any sense, and so I am assuming that isn't what happened. And I would note that other media outlets spun the story in an entirely different manner.

Green Shift Shifts Again, Again

An updated excuse as to why GreenShift has pulled their client list from the company website. Remember , the original reason was that they were "undergoing an analysis period". Now it has become:


Sorry, we are not currently posting the businesses who are part of the Green ShiftTM because some were receiving unexpected calls and camera crews. We hope to be able to post the list soon.


Camera crews? Very strange, and I am tempted to call bullshit, as a quick Google search shows that (with a couple of exceptions, one a being New Brunswick based weekly) there has been no media coverage of the company since about July 14th. So maybe the camera crews left their film at home or found nothing interesting to record?

And, interestingly enough, in the one MSM piece (July 28th) done since that time, from the Kingston Whig-Standard, it is revealed that the company considered complaining to Tragically Hip singer Gord Downie for "screaming the [Green Shift] name onstage". The story also provides, arguably, another excuse for pulling their client list from the website:

In the time since she filed her lawsuit Wright has had to act. A list of companies that her website boasted as clients of Green Shift Inc. has been stricken from the Internet. Some, she said, are Liberal supporters and wrote Green Shift Inc. saying they were caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. So she removed the names.

I think we're up to four now. If Greenshift's lawsuit against the LPoC is to be pursued, at least some of these claims will have to be substantiated.

Green Shift Shifts Again

Once again (earlier version here) they've changed the message where they used to keep their list of business partners, explaining why that list is no longer available. This time they make it explicit: its all the Liberal Party's fault:

The List

We are sorry that due to the Liberal Party hijacking our name, and the resulting media attention on all of the businesses and institutions on the program, we have decided to keep this list more private to ensure that no one is being harassed.

Fortunately, a copy of the list circa about 2007 can be found here, if any journalists feel like testing the claim that these people might be so put off by the Liberal environmental plan and its perceived connection to Greenshift.ca that they would refuse to do business with the latter company.