Daddy Canada having a v important phone call probably. Photo via Twitter
Oh buddy. There it is—the first great federal-provincial blowup of the Justin Trudeau government. What a time to be alive and also be a huge nerd.
The way the Liberals announced their carbon pricing scheme this week really was a masterful bit of political theatre. Just picture it: the provincial environment ministers have been corralled by their federal counterpart somewhere in Montreal for what they assume will be another genteel roundtable ahead of the next First Ministers meeting. Meanwhile, in Ottawa, the Prime Minister rises in the House of Commons, removes his velvet glove, and throws a giant iron gauntlet down on the table: the provinces have until 2018 to get their shit together on carbon pricing, or Ottawa will do it for them. Catherine McKenna welcomes her guests to the Red Wedding and somewhere in Regina, Brad Wall’s head explodes.
Whew. Now that’s executive federalism, baby. Somebody get me a smoke.
As a political tactic, it’s also pretty smart. Delivering this ultimatum now—put at least a $10/tonne price tag on carbon by 2018, and match or surpass $50/tonne in 2022—kickstarts genuine intergovernmental dialogue by forcing the provinces to bring something to the table. Don’t like the carbon tax? Think your province deserves some kind of special exemption? Present a counter offer, if you dare.
For most of Canada, the issue isn’t actually carbon pricing in principle. Roughly 85 percent of Canadians (in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec) will be living under some kind of provincial carbon pricing scheme by January 2017—either a direct carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system. The real issue will be keeping up with the proposed $50 floor six years down the road.
For the holdout provinces, this is either a fire under the ass or a really dramatic way of calling a bluff.
In the first corner, we have Atlantic Canada. Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador both walked out of the Montreal meeting in a huff, but they will quickly and inevitably cave. Neither has any principled opposition to pricing carbon, and they both have desperate provincial Liberal governments and a full slate of Liberal MPs. This means they’ll have really good representation “on the government side,” i.e. they’ll each get talking points tailored to the regional brogue. Trudeau knows his government is the only game on the East Coast, and the Liberals going to milk it for everything it’s worth, here and elsewhere, until the end of time. Please sir, can we have some more?
Meanwhile, Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall is in a worse position. He’s in the middle of a partisan meltdown about the carbon tax and has no real alternative to propose. But unlike the Harper era, he has neither a sympathetic federal government nor any regional allies. Manitoba’s new Progressive Conservative government had already committed to developing some kind of carbon pricing scheme even before the Trudeau bombshell, and Alberta is about to roll out a carbon tax of its own. He can’t even call it a federal tax grab, because any revenue collected would stay in the provinces. Even most of the petroleum industry is on board with carbon pricing, which should be some indication how politically and economically inoffensive it is.
Because of the Sask Party’s refusal to even consider a proactive approach to carbon pricing (even if only to avert it), Wall has painted himself into a corner here. And he knows it—hence all the wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Ironically for a Western showdown with a Trudeau, Alberta may be poised to come out on top. Rachel Notley kept the province ahead of the curve by rolling out an ambitious carbon tax ahead of the feds, even though most Albertans hate it. But now, Trudeau has given her a set of useful tools for dismantling domestic opposition. The federal carbon levy means that the province’s hands are effectively tied, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it—not the Wildrose, not the Tories, and not whatever Frankenstein’s monster Jason Kenney is trying to stitch together. Well, nothing besides launching a series of ridiculous lawsuits, anyway.
This also gives her a bargaining chip with the feds. The federal Liberals might be inclined to go to bat for a new pipeline if the province plays ball—and if it looks like handing Notley a pipeline approval would thwart a conservative restoration. A new pipeline would completely fuck any serious effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but hey: scorched earth is a small price to pay for another four years of trolling the Western right.
Of course, as sexy as all this federal backstabbing is, it does fly in the face of pre-PM Trudeau’s argument last year that carbon pricing should be left to the provinces. It’s a pretty big reversal, but not surprising. This is the way confederation works now. Pierre Trudeau rebooted Ottawa’s centripetal force in 1982 and now—despite a few regionalist and/or separatist hiccups—everything is slowly drifting back under the federal thumb. Stephen Harper spent the better part of 10 years doing more or less whatever he wanted, the provinces be damned. Why would Justin Trudeau renounce that kind of power now that he’s on a mission to restore Canada’s international climate cred?
The prime minister claiming “climate leadership” here too is also a brilliant bit of political theatre. Imperial Federalism is not the only Harper legacy that Trudeau has cheerfully picked up. The Liberals have also adopted Harper’s lackluster emissions targets wholesale. And if the recent LNG port approval in British Columbia is any indication, they’re about as keen on supporting industry (and ignoring Indigenous demands) as Harper ever was.
“Sunny Ways” indeed. Funny how much the Trudeau era is starting to look like Harperism with a human face.
Follow Drew Brown on Twitter.
