THE STAR’S VIEW

This editorial was written and published by the Toronto Star on April 1, 2024.

Much to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s delight — for all ambitious politicians need an enemy and, better still, cause to lead a crusade — the carbon tax goes up Monday.

Poilievre will, of course, rail bitterly against the federal government’s initiative to fight the existential crisis of climate change and this latest scheduled increase.

But he knows it is the engine behind his rise in polls and what he hopes will help make him prime minister.

So Poilievre will continue to lead choruses of “Axe the Tax!” and “Spike the Hike!” until the words are as impossible to forget as a regrettable tattoo.

It’s one of the curious aspects of our politics that practitioners who talk most ardently about respect for citizens tend to speak to them as one does small children and animals.

Short words. Short sentences. Percussively repeated.

To give him his due, the sloganeering has served Poilievre well. But Axe the Tax!, for all its monosyllabic utility in engaging the hard-pressed and disaffected, does not give much evidence of what the Conservative leader intends to do, should he be elected, about the central challenge of our times.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week demanded something more mature from his rival and to take on the clutch of premiers who have joined Poilievre’s bumper-sticker brigade.

The premiers, Trudeau said, have been misleading Canadians about the impact of the tax, set to increase by $15 a tonne to $80, and defended Ottawa’s approach.

“Putting a price on pollution is the foundation of any serious plan to fight climate change. It is the most efficient way to reduce emissions across the economy … Carbon pricing alone will account for one-third of our emission reductions by 2030,” he wrote in a letter to the premiers.

Critics, he said, “would rather complain and attack and mislead Canadians for narrow political gain because of an ideological objection apparently to fighting climate change, but also an unwillingness to recognize that we are putting more money in people’s pockets with rebate cheques.”

To those premiers and Poilievre, the prime minister essentially said, “If not this, what?”

The government is open, he said, to other carbon-pricing systems. But it’s doubtful he will receive a serious reply any time soon.

There’s no doubt his government could have done a better job explaining and promoting the carbon-pricing plan. The Liberals have admitted as much with their rebranding plan on the enterprise. The move last fall to exempt home-heating oil from the tax was also a mistake, opening the door to inevitable demands for other exemptions.

The Liberals, moreover, have been fighting a couple of political home truths.

First, that short-term pocketbook issues — especially when inflation is driving up the cost of everything and straining household budgets — usually trump complex longer-term challenges.

This remains true even when Canadians can see the evidence of climate change in dramatic weather events, wildfires, floods and the massive costs associated with such natural disasters. And when report after report spells out the crisis and its cause and pleads for political leaders to find the will to make difficult decisions.

Second, sloganeering designed to evoke anger works.

The word “slogan,” etymologists tell us, comes from the Scottish Gaelic sluagh ghairm, or “battle cry.” They are meant to be evocative and, as such, they are beloved by armies and by the pseudowarriors of the world of sports. Slogans are the favoured device of salespeople and politicians, too, because they are short, easily remembered and designed to stir emotion, not thought or debate.

As pithy as Poilievre’s slogans sound, such adolescent politics will get us nowhere in addressing climate change.

Poilievre does himself no credit and does the country no service by failing to outline what his response would be.

Blithe assurances of some miracle, cost-free, yet-to-be-developed technology that will solve the problem are thin reeds to grasp.

From a man who aspires to lead the country after next year’s election, slogans are not good enough.

This article was written by Rosa Galvez and was published in the Toronto Star on March 30, 2024.

ROSA GALVEZ IS A CIVIL ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER AND A FORMER PROFESSOR AT LAVAL UNIVERSITY.

The second iteration of the Bloomberg New Energy Finance report released last December, highlighted how, for the second year in a row, Canadian banks rank amongst the worst in the world when measured on how much funding is directed to fossil fuel versus renewable energy.

Last December, while testifying at the Senate Banking Committee studying Bill S-243 — the ClimateAligned Finance Act (CAFA) — Superintendent of Financial Institutions Peter Routledge also stated that loan portfolios have not materially shifted from emitters to clean tech. While this can be partially attributed to the lack of sustainable finance disclosures standards, it does affirm the Canadian banks are still very much investing in fossil fuel producers.

Indeed, Canadian financial institutions are among the most entangled with fossil fuel interests in the world. A CBC investigation revealed eight out of Canada’s 10 largest pension fund managers have at least one high-ranking member who is actively directing a company in the oil or gas sector. Yet another investigation had found Canada having the highest degree of ties between bank directors and extractive industries out of 15 countries surveyed.

This raises legitimate questions. Is this a good governance practice? Are fossil fuel interests superseding the interests of banks’ customers, and more broadly the interests of Canadians? What role does this entanglement play in Canada’s delay in its transition to a low carbon economy and consistently not achieving its emissions reduction targets? Where is the necessary climate expertise?

The truth is emerging south of the border. The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform revealed oil and gas companies‘ ongoing deliberate greenwashing with misleading or outright false claims about their climate-related actions to undermine the urgent need to sharply reduce heat-trapping emissions and to stall and obstruct oversight and accountability.

Still, in the U.S. there are currently more than 30 court cases where local governments, such as California, are suing fossil fuel corporations for their campaign of deception to delay critical action leading to mounting damages from the unabated climate crisis.

Such court actions could move to Canada, where various greenwashing complaints have been filed with the Competition Bureau. While these climate damages lawsuits could reach the trillions of dollars globally, investors are flying blind when it comes to assessing the litigation pillar of climate-related risks, according to new Oxford Sustainable Law research.

Failing to address the entanglement of fossil fuels and finance in Canada leads to continued inaction that will hurt all Canadians. In fact, Canada is the country that will lose the most GDP per capita from failing to address the climate crisis.

It is already having catastrophic impacts, increasing the cost of living for Canadian households by $700 per year, a direct, and often overlooked, contributor to the affordability crisis. The climate emergency and the country’s affordability crisis go hand in hand, and to address both means to change corporate governance within the financial sector.

Hence, CAFA proposes specific solutions as part of its comprehensive package to fill the main gap in Canada’s climate policy: financial regulation. It not only requires planning and acting for a fossil fuelfree future, but institutes a worldfirst conflict of interest disclosure obligation and eventual prohibition for board members with ties to organizations that are not in alignment with climate commitments.

It would also mandate climate expertise on the boards of important financial Crown corporations and the public sector pension board. It institutes a superseding public interest duty to align with climate commitments.

The average Canadian will pay the consequences of not addressing climate risks and the economy will suffer. It is in everyone’s best interest to see this bill through so that we can truly ensure the financial system prioritizes long-term benefits to society over short-term profits for a few.

Future-proofing the economy and aligning the financial system with our climate commitments is the way forward.

It is in everyone’s best interest to see the ClimateAligned Finance Act through so that we can truly ensure the financial system prioritizes long-term benefits to society over short-term profits for a few

This opinion was written by Paul Kershaw, a policy professor at UBC and founder of Generation Squeeze, Canada’s leading voice for generational fairness. It was published in the Globe & Mail on March 30, 2024.

Whenever I hear politicians propose to cut the carbon price, I can’t help but think back to my childhood growing up with divorced parents. On the rare occasions my dad took me for weekends, he would offer me candy and let me stay up late. “Why can’t you be more like him?” I’d yell after returning home as my mom made me do my homework, eat vegetables and go to bed on time.

So it is with proponents of Axe the Tax. They offer us candy, when the federal government, like my mom, expects us to live responsibly.

Our kids are counting on us to be good ancestors, since their health, safety, air, water and food is put at grave risk when we pollute too much. That’s why I beg all politicians to stand by the historic decision to put a price on carbon and move forward with the scheduled increase on April 1. There are better ways to improve affordability, such as policies to reduce housing, child care and other major costs of living.

Don’t get me wrong, I know the candy is appealing. Those opposed to the federal carbon price promise to save us money.

Generally they won’t, because research conducted at the University of Calgary shows the carbon price contributes less than 1 per cent to our major costs of living, such as rent and food. The rebate we get back is more than what most of us pay for our pollution.

Even more appealing is the suggestion we don’t need to feel guilty. When we’re dutifully driving our kids to hockey, soccer and music lessons, no one wants to feel like we’re harming our kids because we’re driving a vehicle that burns gas.

Or when we work hard to pay for home heating so our children and grandchildren stay warm amid the harsh Canadian winter, no one wants to consider that our furnaces burn fuels that put our offspring at risk.

So we respond when a national leader suggests we can set that guilt aside. And what sweet relief it is to feel let off the hook.

But a politician’s promise that pollution can be free is no more realistic than my childish fantasy that I could live on candy alone.

We are all entangled in an energy system that helps and harms our children. While it enables us to taxi our kids around, and keep them warm, it also poisons the air they breathe, evaporates the water they need to drink and burns the forests in which they play.

That is why faculties of medicine across the country, including my own at UBC, teach that climate change is the greatest risk to human health in the 21st century.

Recognizing we are entangled, the carbon rebate pays us back for our efforts to pay for pollution and pocket any savings when we reduce our emissions.

Still, some say we can’t afford to pay for the messes made by our pollution. My response to that is we don’t solve wallet problems by neglecting climate problems. We solve wallet problems by reducing expenses such as child care, housing and postsecondary.

So we need provinces to accelerate implementation of the $10-a-day child care plan funded by the Trudeau government.

We need to resist NIMBYism and get more homes built, as Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre urges – something the federal housing accelerator fund is now successfully doing.

We need home prices to stall to restore affordability for all. As we reduce major costs of living, it’s easier to accept there really is no choice to pay, or not to pay, for our pollution.

The only choice is to pay now, and get a rebate. Or burden our kids to pay more later.

Later abuses the authority we wield over our kids. Since they can’t vote, they have to trust us to do more – not less – to fight climate change. This means urgently cutting smog and trash, and paying for our pollution – present and past. At stake is our legacy.

To preserve summers without smoke, winters when our kids can ski, water they can drink and forests and wildlife with which they can live in awe.

That’s why we pay for our pollution. Because nobody wants to be remembered for wrecking the planet for our kids when we had a last chance to protect it.

The only choice is to pay now, and get a rebate. Or burden our kids to pay more later.

This article was written by Marcus Gee and was published in the Globe & Mail on March 30, 2024.

With another increase taking effect on April 1, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is under fire again over the carbon tax. To rally support, he needs to make a national address to Canadians. Here is what he should say.

Good afternoon. I want to talk to you today about the carbon tax.

As you know, the federal government has been charging an extra tax on gasoline, natural gas and other fossil fuels as part of this country’s contribution to the battle against global warming. I’m proud that Canada has taken this step. It is the right thing to do.

Lately, all sorts of misleading claims and simple falsehoods have been circulating about the cost and effect of the tax. I have chosen to speak to you in person today to tell you why you should reject this flood of misinformation.

I also want to make amends for our government’s failure to make the case for the tax. That failure is my responsibility and I apologize for it. We should have done better. Today I hope to explain why this measure is so important for our country and the planet.

I don’t have to tell you that the world is facing a grave climate threat. We have had a glimpse of what the future might look like right here in Canada, where we have been stricken by floods, wildfires and other extreme-weather events.

For a long while, Canadian governments did very little to combat this gathering crisis. Political leaders, including those of my own party, shrank from taking the decisive action that it demanded. The cost seemed high, the danger distant. We made earnest pledges to cut our greenhouse gas emissions and signed international agreements to keep our promises, yet always fell short, as many other countries did. We in government simply did not have the courage to tell voters what needed to be done.

The government I lead decided to break this cycle of overpromising and under-delivering. We decided to put a price on pollution. By gradually raising the cost of fuels through taxation, we would encourage households and industries to reduce their carbon footprint.

We did not pull this solution out of the air. British Columbia pioneered carbon pricing in Canada and it has been a solid success. The beauty of this idea is that it doesn’t depend on the heavy hand of government. It puts you, the citizens, in charge.

The rising tax on fuels gives Canadians a financial incentive to go green. Many of you are already cutting down on your energy use and making the switch to cleaner technologies like electric hot-water heaters, heat pumps and electric and hybrid cars. Businesses are retooling to become more efficient and less polluting. Step by step, Canada is making the transition to a lowcarbon economy.

Pierre Poilievre and his Conservatives would turn back the clock and throw all of this progress out the window. His Axe the Tax campaign is politics at its cheapest.

He blames the carbon tax for driving up inflation, a claim that credible economists reject. He says the carbon tax takes money out of your pockets. That is pure nonsense.

As he well knows, Canadians get a government rebate to offset the cost of the tax. No less an authority than the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that eight of 10 get more money back than the amount they pay. That is especially true for households with lower or middle incomes. Canadians who take steps to use less carbon, like taking public transit instead of a car when they can, stand to gain considerably.

Mr. Poilievre, a Conservative who purports to stand for a freemarket economy where consumers exercise choice, should understand this. Instead, he would impose more rules and regulations to meet our climate goals – if in fact he would do anything at all.

I know that many of you are struggling these days. Inflation, a global phenomenon, has taken a toll, though thankfully we are getting it under control again. Groceries and rents are way up. Mr. Poilievre and the Conservative premiers allied with him would have you believe it is all the fault of the carbon tax. That’s not true and they know it.

In their hearts Canadians understand we need to get serious about the climate crisis. After years of empty talk and footdragging by governments, we at last have a plan in place. It’s a good plan, based not just on the carbon tax but on incentives, subsidies and conservation. Let’s stick with it. Let’s not get caught up in political bickering. Let’s see this through, together.

This opinion was written by Susan Koswan and was published in the Hamilton Spectator on March 28, 2024.

If you’re confused about the carbon tax, you’re not alone. Putting a price on pollution is being used as a political football now by naysayers with snappy slogans and misinformation. The reality is carbon taxes make all of us part of the solution.

The first carbon tax was levied in Alberta by a Progressive Conservative government in 2007. British Columbia followed shortly thereafter. In 2008, both the federal Conservative and Liberal party election platforms included carbon pricing.

Canada’s carbon tax has been in place since 2019. Provinces and territories were given the option of developing their own plans if they matched the same incremental pricing as the federal program. This April, it will be $85/tonne on its way to $170/ tonne in 2030.

There are two aspects to the program to reduce emissions. Large industrial emitters like steel, oil and gas, and concrete remit their carbon tax through the Output-based Pricing System. They pay more if they produce more emissions and get credits if they produce less. The money goes to industry decarbonization projects.

The Canadian Climate Institute concluded that “marketbased policies targeting industrial emissions (i.e. industrial emitters) are having the biggest impact” as one in “a mix of major climate policies across Canada.”

B.C.’s 2008 carbon tax “reduced emissions in the province by between five per cent and 15 per cent since being implemented …(and) … the tax has had negligible effects on the aggregate economy,” wrote Nicholas Rivers, University of Ottawa professor and former Canada research chair in climate and energy policy.

The amount of carbon tax you personally pay is based on the amount of gas you use to drive, heat your home, and power your appliances. On your home gas bill, it’s shown as the federal carbon charge. As you reduce or replace your gas use, you will pay less.

Four times a year you will receive a rebate to ease the increased cost of paying to burn oil and gas. Your bank statement in April should show the rebate as Canada carbon rebate, although not all banks are using the same wording. The amount differs between provinces. If you live outside a large urban area, you are also eligible for a small town/rural top-up.

The cost of inaction, compared to these incremental expenses, is a world of hurt. Warmest winter in 70 years, worst wildfire and wildfire smoke ever in 2023, flooding, atmospheric rivers, drought, and wind storms … the cost, and pain and suffering is exponentially more expensive.

The Insurance Bureau of Canada reports over $3.1 billion in insured damage in 2023. The Catastrophic Indices and Quantification Inc. (CatIQ) president and CEO, Laura Twidle, writes: “In July and August, there were more catastrophes than Canada has previously seen in an entire year,” including a first-ever in the territories from wildfires.

By making it gradually more expensive to pollute, both industry and individuals have time to adapt their buying habits and behaviour to reduce Canada’s carbon emissions.

The cost of inaction, compared to these incremental expenses, is a world of hurt.

This article was written by the Associated Press and was published in the Toronto Star on March 28, 2024.

The world wasted an estimated 19 per cent of the food produced globally in 2022, or about 1.05 billion metric tons, according to a new United Nations report.

The UN Environment Programme’s Food Waste Index Report, published Wednesday, tracks the progress of countries to halve food waste by 2030.

The UN said the number of countries reporting for the index nearly doubled from the first report in 2021. The 2021 report estimated that 17 per cent of the food produced globally in 2019, or 931 million tonnes , was wasted, but authors warned against direct comparisons because of the lack of sufficient data from many countries.

The report is co-authored by UNEP and Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), an international charity.

Researchers analyzed country data on households, food service and retailers. They found that each person wastes about 79 kilograms of food annually, equal to at least a billion meals wasted worldwide daily. Most of the waste — 60 per cent — came from households. About 28 per cent came from food service, or restaurants, with about 12 per cent from retailers.

“It is a travesty,” said co-author Clementine O’Connor, the focal point for food waste at UNEP.

Canadian economists signed a letter this week addressing the main arguments against carbon pricing. Here’s what they said, and why it ought to matter.

This opinion was written by Bruce Arthur and was published in the Toronto Star on March 28, 2024.

The top issue facing Canadians right now, if you ask Canadians, is affordability. Inflation rose, and is falling to a new, higher floor. Housing costs are the end of the fuse on a time bomb. It’s tough out there for a lot of people. Look around.

So governments must find solutions, or at least be seen to try, and the number one topic has somehow become the carbon tax. Axe the tax, the opposing Conservatives say. They say “Trudeau’s carbon tax has forced Canadians to choose between heating their home and putting food on the table.” Which, uh, isn’t true.

Nevertheless, the Conservatives have hammered this message. In Ontario, Premier Doug Ford has also linked it to affordability, and Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie has run from the idea of a carbon tax in response. Several provinces are opposing the April 1 increase, and the PM is firing back. (Rebates rise with the price, though in fairness, paying up front and having to wait for your money back in April can pinch, in harder times.)

But Pierre Poilievre’s party is driving this exhaust-spewing bus. Affordability. Axe the tax. It’s largely opportunistic nonsense, unfortunately.

“That (idea) that the Conservatives are fighting for the working class on this: I mean, you’re not,” says Andrew Leach, a professor of law and economics, and the co-director of the Institute for Public Economics at the University of Alberta. “You’re fighting for the people who have a material benefit from the removal of carbon pricing, which are people above that 70 per cent or 80 per cent income line. For the middle, it’s a rounding error. To the bottom, (removing the carbon tax) is a big loss.

“And they’re getting away with saying we’re doing this for the poor. And it’s insanity.”

One professor? Pfft, you might say. We can find economics professors who say the carbon tax isn’t worth the cost, and who write opeds whose argument boils down to, uh, CO2 is good for plants.

Well, what about 200 Canadian economists? Because that’s how many signed a letter this week addressing the main arguments against carbon pricing. That it doesn’t affect emissions, for instance. (It does, according to at least two reports, at a lower cost than alternative approaches.) The letter also counters the arguments that the tax drives up the cost of living as a big factor in inflation, that it doesn’t make sense to offer both carbon pricing and rebates, that it harms Canadian business competitiveness, and that carbon pricing isn’t necessary at all.

The letter reads, “Healthy public debate is good, but it should be based on sound evidence and facts.”

“Any attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is going to reduce economic activity,” says Stephen Gordon of the Université de Laval, who, like Leach, is a signatory. “The thing about the carbon tax is it has the least bad effect on economic activity.”

Assuming a shared priority of reduced emissions in a warming world — and it’s clear not everyone shares that view — the letter is a reminder of why Canada chose the carbon pricing route. The letter is no wholesale endorsement of the Liberals, as many of the signers made clear. Gordon, for instance, is one of many critics of their move last year to carve out home heating oil from the tax across the country. No, this is about objective reality. “Expertise basically goes, ‘famous expert says,’ and then the story ends there,” says Gordon. “They don’t say, why does this famous expert say this? What’s the logic, what’s the reasoning behind the argument? (This letter) is an attempt. It’s hard to do in 800 words, for people who don’t have the background, in very general terms.”

It’s perhaps worrying that the state of debate in Canada has reached the point where a huge group of experts feels the need to stage what is essentially an expertise intervention. The Liberals failed to properly explain the policy before they undercut it. The Conservatives decided to act as though the rebates don’t exist, and that evidence on the carbon tax significantly increasing inflation does. Admittedly, sometimes it’s nice to pretend.

But while something like an expert consensus is welcome, can we even properly listen to expertise anymore? Poilievre has already called some of the country’s leading housing experts “failed Liberal academics” when they criticized his party’s plan, and his opinions on the media are well known. And the Conservative party is following, hard.

The Liberals, meanwhile, have been late to the game when it came to listening to expertise on, say, the collision of immigration and the housing crisis, and ended up undermining their own policy, opening the door to the growing rumblings of discontent toward Canada’s high level of much needed newcomers.

Ideally, a letter like this would be considered seriously. In a nation of big challenges, facts and expertise should be welcome. But as partisan politics leans toward ever sharper sticks, it’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? Poilievre may assail the ivory tower eggheads; the Liberals have already taken the letter as a full endorsement, which it isn’t. Listening to non-partisan expertise is a sign of a healthy society. Is that us?

Here is the open letter that the Canadian economists signed: An Open Letter from Economists on Canadian Carbon Pricing

This opinion was written by Kevin Yin, an economics doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley. It was published in the Globe & Mail on March 28, 2024.

The no-confidence vote the Opposition Leader sparked suggests a Poilievre government would be marked by politicking over policy

The carbon tax is the single most effective climate policy that Canada has. But the tax is also an important industrial strategy, one that bets correctly on the growing need for greener energy globally and the fact that upstart Canadian companies must rise to meet these needs.

That is why it is such a shame our leaders are sacrificing it for political gains.

The fact that carbon taxes address a key market failure in the energy industry – polluters are not incentivized to consider the broader societal costs of their pollution – is so well understood by economists that an undergraduate could explain its merits. Experts agree on the effectiveness of the policy for reducing emissions almost as much as they agree on climate change itself.

It is not just that pollution is bad for us. That a patchwork of policies supporting clean industries is proliferating across the United States, China and the European Union means that Canada needs its own hospitable ecosystem for clean-energy companies to set up shop and eventually compete abroad. The earlier we nurture such industries, the more benefits our energy and adjacent sectors can reap down the line.

But with high fixed costs of entry and non-negligible technological hurdles, domestic clean energy is still at a significant disadvantage relative to fossil fuels.

A nuclear energy company considering a reactor project in Canada, for example, must contend with the fact that the upfront investments are enormous, and they may not pay off for years, while incumbent oil and gas firms benefit from low fixed costs, faster economies of scale and established technology.

The carbon tax cannot address these problems on its own, but it does help level the playing field by encouraging demand and capital to flow toward where we need it most. Comparable policies such as green subsidies are also useful, but second-best; they weaken the government’s balance sheet and in certain cases can even make emissions worse.

Unfortunately, these arguments hold little sway for Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives, who called for a vote of no-confidence on the dubious basis that the carbon tax is driving the cost-ofliving crisis. Nor is it of much consequence to provincial leaders, who have fought the federal government hard on implementing the tax.

Not only is this attack a misleading characterization of the tax’s impact, it is also a deeply political gambit.

Most expected the vote to fail. Yet by centring the next election on the carbon tax debate, Mr. Poilievre is hedging against the possibility of a new Liberal candidate, one who lacks the Trudeau baggage but still holds the line on the tax.

With the reality of inflation, a housing crisis and a general atmosphere of Trudeau-exhaustion, Mr. Poilievre has plenty of ammunition for an election campaign that does not leave our climate and our clean industries at risk. The temptation to do what is popular is ever-present in politics. Leadership is knowing when not to.

Nor are the Liberals innocent on this front. The Trudeau government deserves credit for pushing the tax through in the first place, and for structuring it as revenue-neutral.

But the government’s attempt to woo Atlantic voters with the heating oil exemption has eroded its credibility and opened a vulnerable flank for Conservative attacks.

Thus, Canadian businesses are faced with the possibility of a Conservative government that has promised to eliminate the tax altogether. This kind of uncertainty is a treacherous environment for nascent companies and existing companies on the precipice of investing billions of dollars in clean tech and processes, under the expectation that demand for their fossil fuel counterparts are being kept at bay.

The tax alone is not enough; the government and opposition need to show the private sector that it can be consistent about this new policy regime long enough for these green investments to pay off. Otherwise, innovation in these much-needed technologies will remain stagnant in Canada, and markets for clean energy will be dominated by our more forward-thinking competitors.

A carbon tax is not a panacea for our climate woes, but it is central to any attempt to protect a rapidly warming planet and to develop the right businesses for that future.

We can only hope that the next generation of Canadian leaders will have a little more vision.