It is not really about the Carbon Tax

In a previous post I wrote about the breakdown of the current economic orthodoxy that has informed economic and political debate in the Western world for over three decades.  I call it the Conservative Consensus.

In Canada that Consensus was set in stone in 1993 when the Progressive Conservative government of Kim Campbell/Brian Mulroney was destroyed at the polls.  One of the contributing factors to that destruction was the introduction of the GST.  Ironically, the Liberals would be the greatest benefactor to this but it had a lasting chilling effect on effective fiscal policy until 2015.

In Canada, I would say that election was the one that cemented the Conservative Consensus in place.  From that point conservatives framed the debate on what were the acceptable fiscal tools and their position that lowering taxes and decreasing government spending become the default and only suitable position of all governments, regardless of their political stripe.

As I stated in that previous post conservative elements of our societies took full advantage of this situation to eventually land at the position that tax cuts for the wealthy and big business, at the expense of ordinary people, was the best fiscal policy.  Their position was essentially that ordinary people needed to make these sacrifices for the greater good.  And these ordinary people ate it up.

Then along came Mr. Trudeau who campaigned in the last election on a platform that included increasing taxes for the wealthy and the introduction of a Carbon Tax.  He won that election and he kept both of those promises.

So for the first time in three decades a political party has strayed from the Conservative economic orthodoxy and they have been rewarded for it.  That will not do for conservatives who desperately want to maintain the Conservative Consensus.

People ask what the Conservatives would do about climate change.  They point out that they do not have a plan.  They point out that a Carbon Tax is a conservative idea and a market based solution to the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  

These same people miss the point.  It is not about Climate Change.  It is about maintaining the current economic orthodoxy.  It is about maintaining the Conservative Consensus.  I stated in a previous post that there are signs of the Conservative Consensus beginning to break down.  Conservatives see it and they know that in order to maintain it they need to stop any progress away from the Consensus, now, before it develops a momentum that will make it unstoppable.

That is the overarching goal of Conservatives in this country right now.  Everything else is secondary.