Top Liberals distance themselves from the carbon tax

We know that the Conservative Party of Canada opposes carbon taxes, and intends to end them the moment they get their hands on some power. God knows, Pierre Poilievre says "Axe the Tax!" at the start of every sentence he utters. You feel like saying "Gezundheit!" back to him each time.

It now looks like the Liberal Party of Canada, which brought the tax in, is going the same way. Both of the likely Liberal leadership candidates are now making noises along those lines. Chrystia Freeland, long a staunch Liberal climate warrior, is standing on a platform that specifically calls for the scrapping of the consumer carbon tax (although not the industry one). Even Mark Carney, the UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance, is starting to distance himself from the Liberals' carbon tax policy.

I guess climate change measures don't win votes any more. The Liberals (and, I'm guessing, even the NDP, as we will probably see when election platforms are unveiled later this year) are trying to out-Tory the Tories. Sad.

UPDATE

Mark Carney, who these days is looking like the front-runner for the Liberal Party leadership, has firmed up his plans to scrap the consumer carbon charge if he is elected. He says that the policy is too divisive, and that many Canadians perceive it as having a negative effect on their households. 

Well, if the problem is one of perceptions, fix it: explain that they are not worse off for the carbon tax because there is an off-setting rebate that sees most most people actually benefit financially from the policy. Don't just cancel it - that's political nonsense. 

So, now no-one is willing to defend the carbon tax, once the flagship of the Liberal plan to fight global warming. And yet all the reasons that were once  put forward for it still apply. Climate change is still going on, you know; it didn't stop because some people feel, for whatever reason, worse off, or because Donald Trump was elected in America.

And so much for Poilievre's "carbon tax election" - he's going to have to come up with a new three-word slogan now.