The only government in North America to implement a carbon tax to fight climate change has been re-elected handily in British Columbia.

Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell introduced a carbon tax in February 2008 and launched it officially in July, regardless that the introduction date coincided with the highest oil prices in history. The Premier, surprisingly, held his ground, The left-leaning (and traditionally environmentally conscious) New Democratic Party on the other hand opted to attack the tax, characterizing it as an unfair effort to pick the pockets of the poor. She campaigned on a promise to "axe the tax."

On Tuesday, British Columbians said, loudly, that they couldn't believe her. The carbon tax stands; Carole James falls.

British Columbia has the best carbon pricing scheme in Canada. That's the conclusion of a national survey and analysis of climate policies compiled by Sustainable Prosperity, a progressive think tank based at the Univeristy of Ottawa.

According to a Globe and Mail report, the authors of the study invested a year speaking with top economic, business and environment leaders across the country before identifying eight key principles of a carbon pricing plan—think tranparency, reach, simplicity, and so on. The group then applied those principals to score Canada's existing carbon laws and proposals. B.C.'s carbon tax, introduced a year ago, scored an 87. It fell short in the areas of national reach and long-term impact.

The group also informally examined the limited cap-and-trade policy that B.C.'s New Democratic Party is presently campaigning on. Sustainable Prosperity's carbon-pricing director told the Globe that her group's "score card would rate [it] as the weakest policy in Canada.” With few details of that plan yet available, the group was only able to conduct a back-of-the-envelope analysis. It was enough, though, to suggest that New Democrat's plan would introduce "huge instability and doubt" to the market.

Simon Fraser University Professor and (Nobel-winning) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change contributor Mark Jaccard has torn the BC New Democratic Party (NDP) policy document into little tiny shreds in an analysis released yesterday [PDF].

The NDP's environmental proposals are not just doomed to failure, Jaccard said, they will also chase jobs from B.C. in the tens of thousands. 

For people not from Canada's coast, the NDP is a traditional coalition of social policy progressives, labor activists and environmentalists. This particular iteration of the NDP, however, appears intent upon carving off its environmental arm in favour of pandering to the libertarian types who just love to scream about government taxation.

You know how Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000, but lost the election?

Well, in a way, that's kind of what happened in Canada recently.