The updating case study is available Trans Mountain Expansion Project – Policy Case V3 September 2019

The fascinating thing about the Trans Mountain case is that it raises all sorts of questions  about what kind of country Canada is, and in particular who gets to decide what issues? Today’s issue is about how much say a provincial government has about a pipeline that crosses provincial boundaries, specifically whether the Province of British Columbia can regulate what flows through the pipeline.

In a decision released today, the BC Court of Appeal gave a resounding “no” to BC’s efforts to prevent increases in the amount of diluted bitumen flowing through the province. In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that BC proposed regulation was “targeted legislation that in pith and substance relates to the regulation of an interprovincial (or “federal”) undertaking”, specifically the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. As a result, it is unconstitutional.

This decision is a significant blow to the Horgan government’s efforts to block the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. The province has already announced that they will appeal. But it is just one piece of larger Trans Mountain conflict, which is itself only one level of a three-level struggle going on over pipelines and related issues.

A conflict at 3 levels

For most careful observers of the issue, the BC reference case was never considered the biggest risk to the viability of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. That remains how courts will deal with the issue of respecting Indigenous rights after the federal government gives its likely approval to the project. In other words: what say do Indigenous groups have on projects affecting their traditional territories?

And remember, even if those constitutional issues get resolved in the project’s favour, the project will still be facing a protracted and divisive civil disobedience campaign.

Oil vs. the Environment

At the second level, the Trans Mountain conflict is directly tied to a larger issue about oil sands expansion and environmental protection in in Canada. Both the oil sector and the province of Alberta are firmly committed to increasing oil sands production, and desperately need greater access to markets to increase revenues. But Canada has yet to construct a plan that puts us on a path to meeting our greenhouse gas emission reduction targets pledged to the United Nations. Trudeau’s plan that got us part of the way there is under threat by defections from the Conservative governments now controlling the country’s two largest emitting provinces. We’ve yet to reconcile growing emissions from the oil sands with Canada’s requirement to reduce emissions significantly.

This second level is of course all tied up with the drama of the federal election coming up in October. Energy and climate policy will be central to the battle between Scheer’s Conservatives and the three parties to their left.

Who decides? What kind of country is Canada?

The third level of this conflict is who gets to decide what in Canada. Courts have now made it quite clear that neither municipal or provincial governments cannot take actions that have the effect of thwarting,  frustrating, or stopping an interprovincial pipeline. Unless this BC reference is reversed by the Supreme Court of Canada, the next big question is how much say Indigenous groups get on the issue of projects affecting their traditional territories.

The second, oil vs environment level of the conflict overlaps with this third level about what kind of country Canada is. The premier of Alberta has gone so far as to threaten secession if the province doesn’t get at least one new oil pipeline to new markets.

Today was a significant, but not surprising, setback for opponents of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. But it’s just another stage in a long and protracted battle about pipelines, reconciling oil sands expansion with Canada’s environmental commitments, and the decision rules for governing Canada.

September 26, 2018, the NEB released its draft list of issues and factors for consideration in its reconsideration of the Trans Mountain pipeline. The reconsideration commits the same indefensible error of not including climate impacts associated with the project in the proposed factors to consider in the analysis. Below is the text of my submitted comment to the NEB about this concern.

October 03, 2018

Ms. Sheri Young
Secretary of the Board
National Energy Board
Suite 210, 517 Tenth Avenue SW
Calgary, AB T2R 0A8

Dear Ms. Young,

I am writing to provide comments on the draft List of Issues and the draft Amended Factors and Scope of the Factors for the Environmental Assessment under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, 2012 (CEAA 2012) for the NEB reconsideration of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. The proposal would clearly rectify the primary flaw in the original NEB review identified by the Federal Court of Appeal by incorporating project-related marine shipping in the definition of the designated project.

However, the draft commits another serious, and easily rectifiable, error by excluding the consideration of the environmental and socio-economic implications of greenhouse gas emissions associated with the project. This deficiency was acknowledged by the current federal government as a significant shortcoming that it addressed in part by repeatedly committing to consider at least upstream emissions in environmental assessments. If the current government already has an established process to do so for this reconsideration of TMX outside the NEB process, then this is a less serious defect (although still an unnecessarily fragmented way to conduct a review of a project). But I have not seen a statement committing the government to do this.

Best practice in environmental assessment considers all significant environmental impacts of the project being assessed. Given the severity of the global climate challenge, and Canada’s commitment to the international community to play its part in reducing global emissions, it is imperative that this be included in NEB’s reconsideration. I would note that the US, in its reviews of major pipeline projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, assesses both upstream and downstream greenhouse gas implications. Environment and Climate Change Canada’s assessment of upstream greenhouse gas emissions found the following: “Considering only the capacity added by the Project, emissions could range from 13 to 15 Mt of CO2 eq per year.” Those magnitudes clearly classify GHGs as an environmental impact of significant concern deserving consideration. That ECCC assessment is now two and one-half years old, and market conditions affecting the modelled impact might have changed significantly.

Sincerely

George Hoberg
Professor

In a stunning development in Canadian politics today, the Federal Court of Appeal quashed the Canadian government’s approval of the Trans Mountain Expansion Project. The court found two major flaws. First, it ruled the NEB erred by not including tankers when it established the scope of its project. Second, it ruled the federal government did not demonstrate it engaged in a “genuine and sustained effort to pursue meaningful, two-way dialogue” with First Nations.

Now construction on the pipeline cannot proceed unless and until the government corrects these serious deficiencies.

We’ve updated our policy case to account for this major new development. Link to PDF is below. A website is coming shortly

Trans Mountain Expansion Project – Policy Case V2

Trudeau's speech approving the Trans Mountain Expansion Project

Sarah Froese and George Hoberg
August 22, 2018

We have completed a case study on the Trans Mountain Expansion Project, updated through August 19, 2018. We’ll be putting online on a case study website shortly. But we wanted to make it available now in the event any instructors are interested in using it in classes in the fall. It’s designed for use in Hoberg’s public policy classes at UBC, but we are hoping that it can serve as a useful resource beyond those classes for students, instructors, the media, and members of the public who are interested in this fascinating case of Canadian policy. More developments will be playing out in the near future, and we will update the case to reflect major new developments.

Trans Mountain Expansion Project – Policy Case

March 10, 2018 protest in Burnaby, BC

As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and British Columbia Premier John Horgan prepare for the emergency pipeline summit, the dominant discourse in mainstream and social media has been about Alberta’s economic needs and whether or not the BC government is overstepping its constitutional jurisdiction with its proposed diluted bitumen regulation. Those two issues are unquestionably critical, but there are two larger issues looming at the summit: Alberta’s climate challenge and indigenous reconciliation. No one at the summit will be representing these latter two issues but they are undeniably elephants in the room.

Alberta’s Climate Challenge

One of the more remarkable things about the Trans Mountain conversation has been Trudeau and Notley’s claim that the pipeline project is a climate solution. It is true that in the short term, politically, getting Alberta’s participation in the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change was not possible without Trudeau committing to push forward a new pipeline. But the longer-term problem is that it’s hard to square the oil sands expansion planned by Alberta and enabled by the Trans Mountain project with Canada’s UN commitment to the international community to reduce emission by 30% (below 2005 levels) by 2030.

The current policies that make up the Pan-Canadian Framework are not sufficient for Canada to meet its 2030 goals. It’s hard to see how Canada can meet that target without reductions from Alberta, whose much-celebrated Climate Leadership Plan does not reduce emissions through 2030 (report, p. 10). Even more important when discussing long-lived investments like pipelines, for Canada to be a responsible global citizen in contributing the long-term climate goals, post-2030 reductions in emissions will have to be much steeper.

The challenge all along is that the Alberta oil sands fueled model of economic development is simply not sustainable as we shift to a low-carbon, clean energy future. Sooner or later the Governments of Alberta and Canada need to reckon with this reality. Trudeau’s Pan-Canadian Framework, by buying Alberta’s participation with an emissions-expanding pipeline, simply postpones the necessary task of dealing with this reality.

By approving the pipeline, Trudeau chose to imposes the costs and risks on British Columbia, for which there will be an electoral backlash form the west coast. But if Trudeau is serious about climate leadership, or even simply compliance with Canada’s 2030 targets, he’ll need to reckon with the Alberta problem. There’s really no other alternative than beginning the transition away from the oil sands as the core driver of the province’s economy. That will be costly — socially, economic and politically.

Notley certainly doesn’t want to deal with this issue. Trudeau doesn’t either. Horgan has undermined his ability to represent the climate case when he changed the province’s policy framework in an effort to attract a major LNG project, and by advocating increased domestic refining as an alternative to a pipeline to export raw bitumen. Nonetheless, Canada and Alberta’s climate challenge loom large over the emergency meeting.

The Indigenous Reconciliation Challenge

The other elephant in the room is Canada’s challenge in reconciling settler governments with its indigenous peoples. One of the cornerstones of Trudeau’s election campaign has been building a government to government relationship with aboriginal people. Yet while three settler government leaders sit down to discuss the fate of a project of great to concern to many of Canada’s First Nations, no First Nations leadership will be present at the summit. The Governments of Alberta and Canada are rushing to help Kinder Morgan ramp up summer construction even before courts have ruled on multiple lawsuits against the project by First Nations.

All three settler governments attending the summit have committed to fully implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Yet there is a still a huge gulf in understanding of what role First Nations should play in project decision-making. Existing Canadian law, and the expectations of all three settler governments, is that Crown governments have an obligation to consult with and accommodate First Nations, but the consent of First Nations is not required for projects to go forward. In contrast, First Nations believe that UNDRIP’s provision of “free, prior, and informed consent” from indigenous groups means what it says: First Nations consent is required for a project to go forward in their traditional territories.

The Elephants Aren’t Going Away

Each of Canada’s oil sands pipeline proposals has ran into the same process pathology: individual projects have been transformed into proxy battles over broader issues about Canadian climate policy and indigenous rights. The fact that both issues are being ignored in the emergency pipeline summit does not mean that they are any less important or that they are going to go away. Canada is long overdue for serious conversations about reconciling settler and aboriginal title and Alberta’s economic model with a low-carbon future. Let’s hope the gathering of political leadership at the pipeline summit advances those two conversations.

The National Energy Board has recommended the approval of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain Expansion Project with 157 conditions. Yesterday’s decision brings the regulatory process created by Stephen Harper to an end. The decision is now squarely in the lap of the Trudeau government, although the government of British Columbia also needs to take a stance.

Trudeau has created two supplementary processes: a climate test, which is underway for Trans Mountain, and 3-person consultation panel. The climate test will look at the impact of the pipeline on upstream GHG emissions, and a draft of that analysis was also released yesterday. The 3-person panel will be consulting further with First Nations, affected communities, and the public, and is charged with reporting by November 1. These supplementary processes can provide the basis for a rationale for Trudeau departing from the NEB recommendations, but there’s no guarantee they will be used that way.

The BC government also needs to decide whether the project is in BC’s interest. Premier Clark was originally hoping for some political cover from that difficult political choice through the Equivalency Agreement, which handed full responsibility for project review and assessment to the federal government. In January, the BC Supreme Court invalidated that agreement. The BC government has initiated a process for its review, which will include First Nations consultation, but has yet to provide a timeline for completion. The court’s ruling clarified that BC can impose it’s own conditions on the pipeline in BC, but not in a way that has the effect of denying approval to a federally-approved pipeline.

Pledging to multiple incompatible objectives

These additional processes don’t change the fact the decision ultimately comes down to an exceptionally challenging political choice by Prime Minister Trudeau. Trudeau has repeatedly promoted the importance of supporting the Alberta oil sector by diversifying the market for oil sands. But he also ran on the slogan that “governments grant permits, but communities grant permission.” More than a dozen lower mainland municipalities are opposed to the project, including Burnaby, Surrey, and Vancouver. Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson, a close political ally of Trudeau, just launched a major campaign against the pipeline. Public opinion in BC is opposed to the pipeline by a margin of 45% to 36%, and opposition appears to be more intense in the vote-rich Lower Mainland.

Trudeau has also pledged reconciliation with First Nations and the full implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. The declaration calls for “free, prior, and informed consent,” a departure from current Canadian law emphasizing consultation and accommodation. A number of First Nations, including the Coast Salish groups Tsleil-Waututh, Squamish, and Musqueam in the Burrard Inlet and surrounding areas, are vehemently opposed to the project. The Tsleil-Waututh have crafted an elaborate legal strategy to defend their rights and resist the construction of a new pipeline, including forging an alliance with indigenous groups on the Salish Sea from across the 49^th parallel.

Trudeau has also sought to establish Canada as a leader in combatting climate change, and pledged to meet the national target of reducing emissions by 30% by 2030. It’s hard to see how enabling significant expansion of the oil sands, the fastest growing source of Canadian emissions, will put Canada on a path to compliance.

Trudeau can’t keep pledging to do multiple incompatible things. To govern is to choose, and it’s close to time for him to make the difficult political choice on Kinder Morgan’s proposal.

A BC Supreme Court judge today invalidated the agreement between the BC and federal governments on the environmental assessment process used to support the approval of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Pipeline. While the decision does not directly overturn the federal government’s conditional approval decision, it does have major implications for the legality of the project.

Isn’t Northern Gateway already dead?

Most Canadian energy observers believe the Northern Gateway Pipeline, despite its conditional approval by the Harper government in June 2014, is essentially dead. Nonetheless, Enbridge did restate its confidence in the project earlier this week. The project is subject to a number of legal challenges.  Most of the challenges are in federal courts and about alleged flaws in the federal government’s decision-making process. Today’s decision by a BC court judge was not considered one of the most significant challenges, but it does target a critical ingredient in the regulatory approval process.

BC abdicated its regulatory authority under the Environmental Assessment Act

At issue in this case was the BC government’s “equivalency agreement” with the federal government on the environmental assessment and regulatory review process for the pipeline projects. Environmental assessments have several stages, from project proposal, to scoping, to hearings and the actual assessment and report. The final stage is a decision by the appropriate regulatory authority. BC’s Environmental Assessment Act Section 17 clearly calls for a final decision on whether to issue an environmental assessment certificate. When BC entered the equivalency agreement, it not only agreed to defer to the assessment procedures used by the federal government, but also gave up its authority to issue an EA certificate. The most important part of the ruling is judge’s decision that BC had no grounds to give up final decision-making authority. As a result, the equivalency agreement is invalidated, and the province needs to make a decision on whether or not to approve the project.

BC failed in its duty to consult appropriately with First Nations

The parts of the decision about First Nations consultation, which have received all the attention in the instant press on the decsion, are an intriguing combination of limited and expansive. On the one hand, the judge ruled that the province did not have to consult about entering the equivalency agreement (consistent with previous judicial rulings on similar issues. But there was an obligation to consult First Nations about whether or not to terminate the equivalency agreement once BC made its formal opposition to the pipeline known. The province argued that the equivalency agreement transferred the obligation to consult to the Federal government, but the BC Supreme Court judge in this case disagreed. Note this case is not about the adequacy of federal government consultation with First Nations – those decisions are pending in federal court. In this case, since the BC government did not engage in direct consultations with First Nations during the process, the judge ruled it did not uphold its duty. Prior to exercising its final authority under the Environmental Assessment Act, the province must consult First Nations.

Provinces can impose conditions on interprovincial pipelines

In a new twist on regulatory federalism in Canada, the judge in this case ruled that despite federal paramountcy over interprovincial pipeline approvals, it would be permissible for the provincial government to impose certain conditions on interprovincial pipeline approvals. The province could not use its regulatory authority to deny an approval to a pipeline that the federal government approved, but it could add conditions to the federal government’s conditions.

Implications for pipeline proposals

If this decision sticks, the Northern Gateway Project can’t proceed without several additional steps by the BC government. Last we heard, the BC government was strongly opposed to the project. And this judge ruled that the province can’t block an interprovincial pipeline project approved by the federal government.

As a result, the decision shifts the intergovernmental politics of pipelines. For an equivalency agreement to pass muster, BC would be able to defer the assessment process to the federal government, but it would need to issue its own final decision. The current process, where BC submits strenuous objections to the pipeline but then defers the final decision to the federal regulator, would no longer workable.

This decision also has direct implication for the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion project, because that regulatory review process is being conducted according to the same equivalency agreement. There are fewer direct implications for Energy East because BC’s Environmental Assessment Act and the particular equivalency agreement are not in play. If the other provinces’ EA acts and equivalency agreements are similar, then there could be important implications.

Of course, this decision could be overturned or altered on appeal. I don’t know what counts as finality of regulatory decisions anymore. Stay tuned.

Environmentalists protesting Keystone XL at White House

Obama’s decision today to reject the Keystone XL pipeline brings a seven year saga to a close (well, except for the lawsuits). It is an extraordinary victory for the climate movement, but in this post I wanted to focus on the narrower issue of the rationale for today’s decision. It is extraordinary in how it vindicates the symbolic power of the pipeline.

US environmentalists transformed the Keystone XL decision into a test of climate leadership. 350.org’s Bill McKibben, echoing climate scientist James Hansen, repeatedly used the frame of the pipeline being a fuse to one of “the largest carbon bombs on the planet,” the exploitation of which would mean “game over for the climate.”

Obama sent a powerful signal about his climate views and this particular pipeline in his famous Georgetown speech in June 2013, where he spelled out the “climate test”:

“Allowing the Keystone pipeline to be built requires a finding that doing so would be in our nation’s interest. And our national interest will be served only if this project does not significantly exacerbate the problem of carbon pollution. The net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate will be absolutely critical to determining whether this project is allowed to go forward.”

I was struck that today’s was not based on a decision that Keystone XL “would significant exacerbate” GHG emissions. Instead, today’s decision states “the proposed project by itself is unlikely to significant impact the level of GHG-intensive extraction of oil sands” (p. 29). Despite finding little measurable impact on GHG emissions, the Record of Decision continued, “it is critical for the United States to prioritize actions that are not perceived as enabling further GHG emissions globally.”

The decision cites the broader standard of the “net effects of the pipeline’s impact on our climate,” but makes that about global political reaction, not modelling estimates. In effect, the decision transforms Obama’s climate test into a broader consideration of the impact of the decision of global climate politics:

“A key consideration at this time is that granting a Presidential Permit for this proposed Project would undermine U.S. climate leadership and thereby have an adverse impact on encouraging other States to combat climate change and work to achieve and implement a robust and meaningful global climate agreement. Strong climate targets and an effective global climate agreement would lead to a reduction in global GHG emissions that would have a direct and beneficial impact on the national security and other interests of the United States.”

In his public remarks, Obama stressed the role model justification for the decision: “Today, we’re continuing to lead by example, because ultimately, if we’re gonna prevent large parts of this Earth from becoming not only inhospitable but uninhabitable in our lifetimes, we’re gonna have to keep some fossil fuels in the ground rather than burn them and release more dangerous pollution into the sky.”

The climate movement, remarkably, transformed Keystone XL into a line in the sand on climate. Today, the very symbolic magnification of importance they manufactured was used as the core rationale for the rejection decision.

What an extraordinary victory!

Addendum: A lot of great journalism and commentary has emerged around this decision by Obama in the broader context.

From the architect of the campaign, Bill McKibben, in The New Yorker
Ben Adler on the activist campaign on Vox
David Roberts on the misguided critique of activism on Vox
Brad Blumer on Obama’s rationale on Vox
Elena Shor with a thorough 7+ year timeline on Politico

Pipeline and climate issues took central stage in last night’s leader’s debate hosted by Maclean’s. There are five main takeaways from the debate. You can watch the debate here, and read transcripts from it here at Maclean’s. All the quotes below are taken from the Maclean’s transcription.

1. Energy and environmental issues have become central to Canadian electoral politics.

The most remarkable thing about last night’s debate is the simple fact that the party leaders spent about one-fourth of their debate on energy and climate issues, a striking change from the 2011 federal election debates where energy and environment was largely ignored. The profile of these issues is a clear indication of the remarkable success of First Nations and the environmental movement in forcing these issues onto the political agenda.

2. Opposition leaders teamed up to blame stalled infrastructure on Harper’s poor environmental policies.

Most of the focus of this debate segment was on attacks on Harper’s environmental record by the other three party leaders, although there were noteworthy exchanges and differences among the opposition party leaders as well. Mulcair and Trudeau made almost identical argument that Harper’s poor environmental record had undermined social license for new energy projects and, as a result, hurt the economy.

Trudeau began the assault:

“[N]ot only has he not helped our environment, but he’s actually slowed our economy. He cannot get our exports to market because there is no public trust anymore. People don’t trust this government to actually look out for our long-term interest. We – he hasn’t convinced communities of the rightness of his – his pipelines, of the proposals he supports. He hasn’t been working with First Nations on the kinds of partnerships that are needed if we’re going to continue to develop our natural resources. Canada will always have an element of natural resources in our economy, but the job of the Prime Minister is to get those resources to market. And in the 21st century that means being smart and responsible about the environment. Mr. Harper’s inability to understand that is exactly why he’s so struggled to actually get our economy growing in a right way anymore.”

Mulcair taunted Harper about his record of getting pipeline projects approved:

“Mr. Harper thought that by gutting our environmental laws, somehow he could get our energy resources to market better. How’s that working out, Mr. Harper? None of those projects has gotten off the drawing board, and it’s not hard to understand why. Canadians across the country want a clear, thorough, credible environmental assessment process. Canada can be a leader around the world. We can play a positive role. But with Mr. Harper, we’ve got the worst of all worlds. Dirtier air and water, we’ve got more carbon pollution, and we’re a laggard on the world stage.”

Trudeau piled on:

“The reason environmental groups in Canada and across the United States are so concerned about Canadian oil is because Mr. Harper has turned the oil sands into the scapegoat around the world for climate change. He is – has put a big target on our oil sands, which are going to be an important part of our economy for a number of years to come, although we do have to get beyond them. And his lack of leadership on the environment is hurting Canadian jobs and Canadian relations with other countries.”

Of course that’s not quite right. It’s the environmental movement that has succeeded in framing the oil sands expansion as a major climate risk. Harper has contributed to the stigmatization of the sector by failing to take any meaningful climate action on Canada’s oil sector.

3. Opposition leaders differ on bitumen exports and pipelines

While the opposition leaders were singing the same song about the link between Harper’s environmental policy retrenchment and the failure of his oil sands export strategy, there were important differences in their positions on the merits of exporting raw bitumen. Trudeau supports Keystone XL, but Mulcair and May both oppose it. Mulcair stressed this difference with the Liberal leader: “Mr. Harper and Mr. Trudeau both agree with Keystone XL, which represents the export of 40,000 jobs. I want to create those 40,000 jobs here in Canada.”

Mulcair and Trudeau had an embarrassing exchange accusing each other supporting Energy East in English and opposing it in French. You could almost hear Harper laughing. May emphasized her opposition to Energy East, stating it “is still about export.”

May sought to drive a wedge between the NDP and environmentalists in BC by demanding to know whether Mulcair opposed the Kinder Morgan pipeline. Mulcair re-articulated his nuanced position that he would wait until the regulatory review was complete. But of course he did not do that with Northern Gateway, which he opposed long before the environmental assessment was completed. That exchange led to flashbacks of the 2013 BC election, where NDP leader Adrian Dix (remember him?) began the campaign with the same position, and disastrously changed it mid-campaign. Mulcair’s probably too smart to make the same mistake.

4. Opposition leaders need to bone up on their understanding of GHG trends

Harper has little credibility on the environmental file, and opposition leaders mocked him for it. When Harper described his climate record, May chimed in “That’s not true!” And a bit later Trudeau blurted out “Nobody believe you!” The problem is that what Harper was saying at that point was correct: “Mr. Trudeau, let’s be clear on what the record actually is. Not only do we take both the economy and the environment seriously; we are the first government in history to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while also growing our economy.” Nic Rivers, economist at the University of Ottawa, provided the numbers, direct from Environment Canada.

It is true, as May later emphasized, that the main reason for the decline was the great recession and the policy actions taken by provinces, especially Ontario. It is also true that there has been a steady rise since the 2009 nadir, and that the Harper government’s own projections show them continuing to increase substantially as the oil sands sector expands. But it is also unquestionably true that emissions for the latest year we have data (2013) are lower than when Harper took office, despite economic growth over that period.

There’s plenty of dishonesty in Harper’s statements on energy and environment to criticize. In the debate, he said more than once that Mulcair is opposed to LNG in BC, when that is not his position. His continued castigation of his opponents for pushing a carbon tax (discussed below) is another obvious example. But the opposition leaders should sharpen their understanding of and arguments about carbon emission trends.

5. Harper continued his silly demagoguery against the carbon tax, and no one responded

Since he feasted on Stephan Dion in the 2008 election, Harper has gleefully bludgeoned opponents for supporting a carbon tax. In last night’s debate, he persisted:

“The way you don’t deal with this problem is start imposing carbon taxes that will inevitably – they raise money for the government. They don’t reduce emissions. They hit consumers, and they hit consumers hard…Paul, I’ll say what I’ve said to people across the country: a carbon tax is not about reducing emissions. It’s a front. It is about getting revenue for governments that cannot control.”

There are several problems with this statement. First, while May’s fee and dividend is a carbon tax, the two main opposition parties aren’t supporting a carbon tax. Mulcair advocates cap and trade. Trudeau would let the provinces choose their instrument. More importantly, the argument that they don’t reduce emissions and are only a front for padding government finances is just not supported by the record. BC’s carbon tax has been held up as an international model of a revenue-neutral (meaning it does not raise government revenues) carbon tax that has reduced emissions while the economy grew substantially. It is true that you could use carbon pricing to increase government revenues, and there are pros and cons of doing so. But Harper’s argument that it’s a front for padding government treasuries is sheer demagoguery.

What surprised me is that not one of the three opposition leaders chose to defend carbon pricing. I’m not sure whether this is because they see defending carbon pricing as a no-win strategy against Harper, or they just chose to focus their arguments elsewhere. Whatever the reason, we ended up with a debate heavy on pipelines and remarkably unilluminating on climate policy. A basic word search shows climate issues were out-mentioned by pipelines 43-28.

We’re still waiting for that long overdue national conversation about climate policy.

Nonetheless, congratulations to Paul Wells and Maclean’s for fostering a vigorous debate on these important issues.