Peter A. Nelson And His Lettuce Fetish

Peter A. Nelson, executive director of the Atlantic Provinces Trucking Association, has achieved a certain level of notoriety lately for being a carrier of Tory water in their attack on the Dion Green Shift.

Specifically, he has argued that:

Transportation costs would rise with increased fuel costs as a result of carbon taxes, prices of consumer goods and food would rise, inflation would then in turn rise.

The average consumer would see this rise in the form of paying $8 for a head of lettuce at your local grocery store.

How do you like them apples, eh? Except that last year when Maine considered running a toll road through the state to the Canadian Border, he argued that

We cannot continue to discuss Atlantica, Atlantic Gateway or Self Sufficiency until we resolve the issues around transportation infrastructure in and out of the region and the rising costs of transportation which are causing Central Canadian shippers, producers and manufacturers to send their goods to higher population areas along the US eastern seaboard and away from Canada’s east coast in other words we are headed for two things in Atlantic Canada, one being that it will soon cost $8.00 for a head of lettuce in Newfoundland and secondly that we will be able to buy any pair of shoes we want in the region as long as they are black oxfords!

So now we're at $16 a head. But there's more! Yesterday, on the Trucknews website, Mr. Nelson argued that recent increases to fuel surcharges levied by Marine Atlantic would have even more deleterious effects:

In short, a couple of years from now you will be able to buy any pair of shoes you want in Newfoundland as long as they are brown oxfords. The region-wide impact will be this: as manufacturers, producers and shippers pull back from Newfoundland, it then becomes very easy to stop shipping to other costly and less populated areas in Atlantic Canada like Cape Breton, southern Nova Scotia and northern New Brunswick," adding that the day of the $10 head of lettuce in Atlantic Canada is not far away.

So now we're up to $26 for a head of lettuce in Atlantic Canada, and a severe shoe shortage!

A couple of things in conclusion: 1) Mr. Nelson should get some new material, and 2) Dion has been lucky thus far in the quality of his Green Shift opponents. He's going to need to remain lucky, however, if every time he tries to explain The Shift he generates headlines like this one.

h/t Calgary Grit.

Scrap This Part Of The Green Plan

From the Liberal Party booklet:

Introduce a new, universal child tax benefit worth $350 per child, per year, on top of all existing child benefits. This will provide direct financial assistance to Canadian families whether or not they pay any income taxes.

This, I think, is the bit Thomas Aquino is talking about when he says:

"There are a number of good things in the Dion plan, no question about it, but one of my major concerns . . . is that the idea of using environmental taxes to deal with social policy that is not related to the environment, in my view, is a bad idea..."

It's also the sliver of truth in the Tories claim that The Green Shift is a "tax grab/redistribution scheme" meant to fund Liberal election promises. Take this provision out and you kill their best argument; you also presumably can set the carbon tax rate lower, as you won't need the cash to cut everyone with a kid a $350 cheque.

Kinsella On Board?

"It doesn't look like a total disaster."

About as close as a thumbs up as we're likely to get from Canada's 2nd grumpiest blogger (this guy being number one). I am reminded of Lou Grant's famous "It doesn't stink." from the Mary Tyler Moore Show. Considering the source, high praise indeed.

Liberal Mole Strikes Again

Details of Tax shift plan that CBC has "learned of" here. 10% across the board income tax cuts; tax credits and other help for Northern and rural Canadians. Etc. Quite defensible, in short.

B.C. Poll Shows Gord Campbell Doing Fine WIth Carbon Tax

After several paragraphs of negative spin, the Vancouver Sun lets slip:

The poll shows the Liberals have the support of 47 per cent of decided voters, a number slightly above what they've held throughout the past year.

The NDP has 33-per-cent support, down three points from this time last year.

The seatless Green Party remained steady at 16-per-cent support, a level it has essentially held for the past year as well.

"I think the most important number is that at this point the vote hasn't changed one iota, despite the fact a lot of people knew this [the carbon tax] was coming," said Braid.

"It's been discussed since February and it hasn't had any impact whatsoever."

Probably helps that the provincial NDP is playings its usual "Don't Tax Me, Don't Tax Thee, Tax The Man Behind The Tree" routine, arguing, not a against a carbon tax per se, but just this carbon tax. I suspect that, when the dust settles, the Federal political landscape, much like the landscape in B.C., will remain more or less unchanged, which Dion earning a point or two with the electorate for showing some hitherto unsuspected courage.

B.C.'s Carbon Tax: The Fury is NOT Palpable

While James's campaign, which includes a petition and a series of public events, may be popular with some, it still remains unclear how strongly opposed British Columbians are to the gas tax.

[...]

More polls are expected in the days to come, and the Business Council of B.C., which had been lukewarm, said the tax will not be hard to bear.

"Households in the province should not be worse off economically," said Jock Finlayson, the council's executive vice-president of policy.

"In fact, I think a lot of them are going to be better off, marginally, with the carbon tax.

"I don't think that message has gotten out, and I say that as somebody who was not a huge proponent of even doing this."

Meanwhile Chantel Hebert is wondering why the Libs would draw attention away from the governing Tories difficulties to put the focus on their own environmental plan. Well, I think to get the party over the 35% hump in the polls, it is necessary for the LPC to stop behaving like an opposition party and start behaving like a government in waiting One element of a government in waiting these days is a responsible environmental plan. Since the Tories DO NOT HAVE a responsible environmental plan, there is a policy vacuum Dion and Co. can move in to and fill.

A hint here from Martha Hall Findlay that the income tax cut portion of the plan may come before the carbon tax imposition part. Good idea, if true.

Canadians and Carbon Taxes

Consider the source, obviously--the Pembina Insitute has an agenda. Nevertheless, this poll confirms what most polls have been showing over the past couple of years:

Canadians are warming up to the prospect of paying an environmental tax on activities that cause climate change, but they don't necessarily expect to get the money back in the form of income tax cuts...

Steve ("the poll guy") V. at Far and Wide has been writing extensively about how Dion's environmental proposals might play out in the political arena. Read this post especially, in which he makes a case that the fact that opinion seems to be swinging the Libs way at the moment is all part of some brilliant strategy. I myself think its just good luck (and esp. some bad moves by Jack Layton), but admittedly the result is the same.

Not that things might not change. Paying a tax in the abstract is always easier than paying it in the real world.

Dion: I Will Not Repeal The Metric System

And other interesting bits from a speech/question & answer session given in Espanola, Ontario. Don't know if the writer cleaned-up his English, but Dion comes off as quite articulate. And if he can explain his carbon tax proposals this clearly, I don't think the Tories attempt to "pre-frame" the issue as being about hiking gas prices will play that well.

For one thing,

...sources say that the plan would not add more taxes to gasoline.

The trick (for me) will be that the Lib environmental plan does not wind up being entirely urban-centric; that there is stuff in it that allows Dion and Co. to pitch it to Tory leaning rural/suburban ridings. For instance, their LEM proposal (Location Efficient Mortgage) is great for people living near a half-decent public transit system. If you don't, you're not likely to be impressed.

Update: Conservative Gerry Nichols makes a good point: everyone is proposing a carbon tax these days, including (most likely) the federal conservatives.

Even Alberta has one, but they're don't call it that.