How to get skeptical Canadians to support a carbon tax

OTTAWA—It was an unseasonably warm few days in Ottawa last week. Coming on the heels of hurricanes in Florida, the tornadoes that devastated the National Capital Region a few weeks ago, wildfires in British Columbia, and an early snowfall in Calgary, the warnings of the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) seemed particularly pertinent. If you missed it, a recent IPCC report suggested we have 13 years before it will be too late to prevent the rise of more than 1.5 degrees Celsius in global temperatures that is the first step towards climate Armageddon. Canada has been identified as one of the largest per capita contributors to climate change. At the same time, the Nobel Prize for economics was awarded to American professor William Nordhaus, who has assessed that carbon taxes are an effective way to counter global warming. These are all sure signs Canadians should be worried—or maybe not. In response to Environment Minister Catherine McKenna’s plans to impose a carbon tax on any province that refuses to set a standard to reduce greenhouse gases, the four horsemen of the climate apocalypse—premiers Doug Ford (Ontario), Scott Moe (Saskatchewan), Brian Pallister (Manitoba), and Alberta’s opposition leader Jason Kenney—were on the hustings opposing her. Meanwhile, in New Delhi, opposition leader Andrew Scheer was sitting down with India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi promising a Conservative government would ship more Canadian oil and gas to fire his economy. And B.C. Premier John Horgan (who has shown resolute defiance of the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline expansion) was touting the benefits of a $40-billion liquefied natural gas terminal in Kitimat. Canadians seem to reflect this ambivalence. A February poll by Abacus showed a third of Canadians don’t believe the climate is changing due to human or industrial activity. It may have something to do with climate-denying politicians south of the border, resistance to new taxes, or welcoming warmer weather in a cold climate. Author Susan Moeller says people get tired of constant crises. In her 1999 book, Compassion Fatigue, she wrote “There is a reciprocal circularity in the treatment of low-intensity crises: the droning ‘same-as-it-ever-was’ coverage in the media causes the public to lose interest, and the media’s perception that their audience has lost interest causes them to downscale their coverage, which causes the public to believe that the crisis is either over or is a lesser emergency.” Despite the constant reminders of the IPCC and the promotion of carbon taxes by politicians and academics, people are skeptical. Resistance to such a tax was the source of former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion’s defeat in 2008 on the “Green Shift” platform. At the same time, most of us are well aware the biggest (and least apologetic) contributors to global warming are China, India, and the United States. And let’s face it: petroleum products are available, cheap and efficient. So, how to get Canadians to support a carbon tax? It might be easier to get them to agree to a root canal. Certainly, preaching to or arguing with them is not the best route. Here are some alternative ideas. The tax must have a price and it has to be revenue neutral: income must equal expenditure. The biggest weakness of the cap-and-trade system in Ontario was that it was (according to Mr. Ford) a “tax grab.” Raising gas taxes will not be easy: offering cheaper gas has proved to be as popular as cheaper beer. Second, there has to be complete transparency in any spending, with public information campaigns used to show what projects the money was spent on, what their effects will be, and for how long. They should show the balance between what was raised and what was spent. Third, the projects should be visible to Canadians. Through adaptation and mitigation projects focused on things like community solar and wind, transportation, protection of the land or support for wharves and breakwaters, cities and towns should be able to boast of clear benefits. Fourth, while it’s impressive some can live “off the grid,” the vast majority of us can’t. We can, however, seek alternatives in the way we eat, travel, and insulate and heat our homes to reduce our reliance on the grid, and we should get a return on that investment. To that end, a fifth suggestion: we need inventors and entrepreneurs to step up to the plate and offer innovations in everything from new consumer solar and wind appliances to converting plastics into roads, and finding better ways to store electricity. And government should support them with carbon-tax revenues. The bottom line is: Canadians want those in authority to deal with their day-to-day concerns, whether on the environment or other issues. Simply imposing another tax won’t cut it. Offering incentives, innovations, and transparency just might. Andrew Caddell retired last year from Global Affairs Canada, where he was a senior policy adviser. He previously worked as an adviser to Liberal governments. He is a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and a principal of QIT Canada. He can be reached at pipson52@hotmail.com. The Hill Times