With Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau making a long graceless exit, his party has turned to former central banker Mark Carney as the likely insider-outsider replacement. But don’t call him “Carbon Tax Carney” as the Conservatives are doing. Heck no, he’s dead set against carbon taxes now. Maybe. It’s hard to tell. Depends which way the political wind might be blowing. Here are the deep thoughts of this tri-national central banking wizard: “The Consumer Carbon Tax isn’t working – it’s become too divisive.” A slightly more principled approach would be to suggest that if it “isn’t working”, and is instead offending people, it must have something to do with not accomplishing its general purpose of fixing the weather while making us all wealthier, not with its specific purpose of re-electing your party. Mind you, rather than dividing Canadians it seems to have united us so effectively, in opposition to it, that even the top Liberals are now running against it, except when they’re promising to raise it. So do you have any thoughts on what turned the thing we were long patronizingly told was far and away the most sensible, efficient, market-friendly, wise-person-advocated measure into a painful dud? Uh no. Just on how to spin spin spin to win win win. Oh, and centrally plan, which isn’t at all a failed and divisive approach.

It is remarkable the degree to which his new policy openly turns on conceited disdain for the sheep he would lead. As Christopher Nardi wrote in the National Post:

“Carney, once a staunch defender of the consumer carbon tax, said the consumer tax has worked as planned but is now hobbled by negative ‘perception’ among the population. He blamed that on ‘misinformation and lies’ from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. ‘It’s worked. It has had some impact in terms of reducing our emissions, making things more efficient,’ he said of the consumer carbon tax.”

Exactly how much entitled cynicism does it take to explain out loud that you’re ditching a policy that works well for a less effective one in order to corral the rubes? And what ever happened to standing on principle, telling voters that on this issue I know you disagree with me but here’s why you should agree instead? Alas, we’re such fools we cannot be weaned off misinformation and lies so he’ll go that way too.

There’s a line we at CDN have been unable to track down that we believe is from Margaret Thatcher asking of a politician ditching long-held convictions for electoral advantage that, if he abandons things he believes in so readily, how long do you think it will take him to break cynical promises? If anyone knows the exact wording and has a citation, please send it. Meanwhile, what’s Carney’s cynical substitute?

Well, his press release explains that:

“A Mark Carney-led government will immediately remove the consumer carbon tax and instead, create a system of incentives to reward Canadians for making greener choices, such as purchasing an energy efficient appliance, electric vehicle, or improved home insulation.”

Which actually manages to insult our intelligence two different ways. First, he either doesn’t know or thinks we don’t know that Canada already has all that stuff. Indeed, what the smart set used to say was wrong with Canada’s carbon tax was essentially that it had been added to all these other measures creating a policy hoorah’s nest instead of replacing them as Nobel-Prize-winning economist William Nordhaus famously recommended.

As Ross McKitrick recently wrote in the Financial Post:

“In a study published last year by the Fraser Institute, I looked at the economic implications of meeting Canada’s 2030 commitments under the Paris Agreement on emission reductions. Using an empirical model, I argued that while the carbon tax would be somewhat costly, the highest costs would come from the layers of regulation included in the Emission Reduction Plan (ERP).”

However, he adds, his latest study shows that the whole thing isn’t just unaffordable, it’s totally impossible. But if you were determined, the last thing you’d want to do is shift away from carbon taxes even if you were in the grip of unseemly ambition.

Thus it’s sad to think that if you’re not sufficiently economically literate to move to a carbon-tax-only model, it might actually still be progress to get rid of the carbon tax and keep the mess of inefficient regulations. But it’s not progress in the sense that, and here comes the second slap to our intelligence, Carney doesn’t talk about this whole question because, well, he’s too smart and we’re too dumb, or he’s too slick and we’re the rubes at this particular carnival.

Indeed, as Lorrie Goldstein observed, McKitrick’s study points to:

“149 government programs to cut emissions — of which the consumer fuel tax is just one — plus onerous new, expensive government regulations and massive subsidies to the private sector for building, among other things, new electric vehicle plants and EV battery plants.”

So it's not obvious what Carney could add even if he wanted to. But what he apparently doesn’t want to do is talk to us like we had a brain.

To be fair, he’s a versatile showman, as there’s also something of the Wizard of Oz in his pitch. Carney tells us and our little dog that:

“This plan will be complemented by measures to: invest in energy efficient buildings and electrified transportation; have big polluters pay Canadians to make their green choices while paying their fair share for emissions; help make Canadian companies more competitive so that Canada can leapfrog the United States in international markets; and introduce trade measures to ensure fairness for Canadian industries in the global economy to ally with those countries engaged in the fight against climate change.”

Oh really? You know how to do all that stuff? How wise you must be. And guess what? We’re all gonna get rich. His January 29 press release quoted at the outset begins:

“Today, Mark Carney presented a climate policy that will bring Canadians together, lower costs for people, grow our economy, and create jobs today and in the future.”

Gad! Can flying cars, personal jetpacks and an Epcot “Spaceship Earth” home filled with hydroponics be far behind?

Here in Kansas there’s a small problem. It’s exactly what we were promised would happen with existing policy that instead proved mysteriously “divisive”, perhaps because we were too dumb to know what was good for us or too mean to appreciate it. The so-called “green energy transition” was always sold as meaning we’d actually do well by doing good, saving the planet and massively upgrading our grubby lives to the gleaming plant- and light-filled socially-inclusive metropolis of the future where everyone sipped latte while doing graphic design in a relaxed, fulfilling environment.

Instead we got skyrocketing fuel bills, deindustrialization, more bad weather and what was that other thing? Oh yeah. Divisiveness. But never mind. This time for sure:

“We need a climate policy that is unifying, credible, and predictable – to reduce emissions, drive investment, and build an economy for the future. New and more effective policies that have broad public support are now needed. It’s time for a climate policy that brings Canadians together, makes our economy more competitive, and grows jobs today and in the future.”

Dude, if we could walk that way… And you can’t either. A lot of it reads like a 1970s airport-paperback economics manifesto on how replacing competition with cooperation as in Japan will make us all rich, relaxed, healthy and wise. Which also didn’t work and doesn’t taste better reheated.

It might be less nauseating if Carney were able to explain convincingly why some current initiatives other than the carbon tax achieved so little at such high cost. For instance “incentives to reward Canadians for making greener choices, such as purchasing an energy efficient appliance, electric vehicle, or improved home insulation.” Or rather, to be fair, “a system of incentives”. No random throwing money at things here. Oh no. Gosplan is on the job. And that turned out great last time too.

Likewise, we’d feel less queasy if he didn’t promise to “Phase out the use of fossil fuels in federal government buildings by 2030 to reduce government energy bills” without any discussion of how exactly it could be done, or whether, let alone a discussion of why if it’s cheaper they hadn’t done it anyway. Instead the whole announcement is smoke and mirrors. There’s no actual economic thought there, and no frankness. Not one discussion of potential difficulties or tradeoffs. Just a lot of free green beer Tuesday.

In place of analysis we get what essentially amounts to conceit. So our final rebuke to Carney, for this week anyway, is that getting all rapturous about your own vague but overwhelming greatness doesn’t make any or all of your shimmering vision descend shimmering from the heavens with transparent gold and jasper as you attempt to descend from the heavens to the pinnacle of Canadian public life:

“Our plan will directly solve both problems. We will implement policies that are at least as effective in lowering emissions, and we will bring forward new economic measures that will make Canadians better off.”

And after lunch, peace on Earth, goodwill toward man.