After election defeat, a conscientious shift

In a surprising and impressive political about-face, BC New Democratic Party leader Carole James withdrew her party's opposition to the BC carbon tax today - committing to improving the tax, rather than trying to undermine it.

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.

"As citizens of the planet, it is our responsibility to put the planet before politics and urge the next B.C. government and federal politicians to do the same."

Mike Harcourt, et al, Globe and Mail Online, Saturday, May 9, 2009

At a critical time, B.C. New Democratic Party leader Carole James decided it was expedient to put politics first, and tomorrow, it looks like she will pay the price.

The B.C. election campaign that wraps up today has been  both shocking and inevitable. It was shocking, for example, that so many traditional New Democratic Party (NDP) supporters, from David Suzuki and Tzeporah Berman to (most surprisingly) former NDP Premier Mike Harcourt, should speak up in praise of Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell's carbon tax.

And it was inevitable that the NDP would dismiss THAT as politics, making a strained claim for environmental high ground on the basis of the party's other policies.

BC NDP leader Carole James defended her party's proposal to scrap the BC Carbon Tax by promising to "implement a cap-and-trade system to put a price on carbon."

This of course is nothing new in that British Columbia is already a partner in the Western Climate Initiative (WCI.)

Under the WCI framework member States and Provinces are well underway in identifying, evaluating, and implementing "collective and cooperative ways to reduce greenhouse gases in the region, focusing on a market-based cap-and-trade system."

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.