It appears that the next federal election is going to be mostly about carbon taxes. As it should be.Carbon pricing is the most effective, convenient and least expensive means of reducing the greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) that cause global warming.It also stimulates economic growth. In 2017, B.C., Quebec and Alberta, each with carbon-pricing systems in place for several years, were the fastest-growing economies in the country.Canada is a pioneer in carbon pricing. In 2006 and 2007, Alberta and British Columbia, respectively, launched North America’s first carbon-pricing systems. The B.C. model is regarded as perhaps the best in the world. More on that later.But in the coming federal election campaign, carbon pricing will be demonized in some quarters.The government of Ontario Premier Doug Ford is running a radio ad that claims your cost of living is about to soar because of the carbon tax imposed by Ottawa on April 1.Read more: Ford cuts will cost Toronto $177.65 million this year, city manager warnsToronto considering legal action to make big polluters pay costs of climate changeOpinion | Martin Regg Cohn: Doug Ford channels his inner Don Cherry on global warming and the Stanley Cup playoffsSaskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, another of the four so-called “holdout” premiers who opted against creating a carbon pricing program, describes the federal policy as “the ineffective, job-killing Trudeau carbon tax.”Those are falsehoods. They are no different in kind from the “fake news” that yielded perverse outcomes in the 2016 Brexit referendum and the U.S. presidential election of that year.Among the most effective ways of getting rid of something we don’t want is to put a price on it. That’s carbon pricing in a nutshell. Escalating taxes on tobacco products helped shrink the portion of adult Canadians who smoke from a peak of 55 per cent to the current 18 per cent. The crisis of acid rain was solved when the U.S. im ...
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