Coalition Government: one reason to go for it

A number of commentators have been using chess metaphors to describe what's going on in Ottawa this weekend. Well, I'm a chess player and here is a very relevant chess proverb:

"The threat is stronger than its execution"

I think that the exercise of readying a coalition government is a good one if only to provide a credible alternative to the Conservative government and thereby to help the opposition parties do their job.

In a minority government, an effective opposition must be willing and able to present an alternative. Otherwise they have no way to induce the comprises that voters have given them a mandate to negotiate. Usually the alternative is to return to the polls, but with an election having been held so recently, and with the prospect of minority governments being the norm in the foreseeable future, opposition parties must be ready with a credibly viable alternative government, if only simply to be able to do their jobs effectively.

Carbon Pricing and Environmental Federalism

This weekend I attended the Carbon Pricing and Environmental Federalism conference in Kingston, Ontario. This meeting, organized by Queen's University's Institute of Intergovernmental Relations, brought together many of Canada's experts in the field of public policy on climate change.

Needless to say, Stephane Dion, the Green Shift and the recent election were not far from everybody's thoughts. The mood was a bit somber in this respect as exemplified by Prof. Kathryn Harrison of UBC, a political scientist, who said that with last week's vote, optimistically, action in Canada on climate change will be pushed back by at least ten years. Various people had unkind words for the NDP and the Conservatives for campaigning against the Green Shift with misinformation and scare tactics. More than one person told me that the best use of my time now, as an activist, would be to talk to kids, with the sad implication that changing the minds of older generations, as a whole, was a lost cause (although as a younger person and somewhat of a kid-at-heart, I am not willing to give up so quickly).

Economist Nancy Olewiler (an organizer of the letter signed by 250 economists during the election campaign supporting a carbon tax) of SFU, however, amid her own observations of the difficulties that the fight against climate change faces, did say that we should celebrate one thing: that the recent federal election in Canada was the first Canadian election where pricing policy (as opposed to voluntary initiative or incentives) for carbon emissions was a major issue.

Climate change will be challenging us for a long long time. How to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will be a political issue for a long long time. As long as we have a market economy, the price of emissions, however it is generated, will also be a political issue. And so I think that Canadians will be talking about Stephane Dion and the Green Shift for many years to come.

Stephane Dion put a clear policy forward for carbon pricing as a first step to combat climate change. It was supported by environmentalists and economists. It was roughly in line with the Green Party's proposal, and it was based an old idea going back in the political arena at least as far as a policy proposal by a US Republican party presidential candidate in 1979, John Anderson, and implemented in one form or another in many countries since then.

In my opinion we are indebted to Stephane Dion for bringing some intellectual honesty to Canadian politics. Perhaps his mistake was to be so honest as to call a tax a tax. One of the conclusions of this conference was that, politically, Canadians are not ready for that. Conference participants concluded that we should never again associate carbon emissions pricing with the word "tax", and simply disguise it with names such as, "cap and trade", "public benefit funds", "renewable portfolio standard", or "foreign oil security fee".

I believe that history will show that Mr. Dion should be accorded more respect than he has been receiving from certain (close) quarters in the last week. We need more people like him in Canadian politics.

Cross Country Checkup went well

Stephane Dion's appearance on Cross Country Checkup went very well I thought. It had an intimate 'fire-side' feel, and the discussion didn't seem rushed. The questions were pointed but Dion could take the time to explain his policies and show how much he cares about Canadians and their future. I can't explain it, but the radio show seemed to go much better than any television interview I've seen.

Sign wars

Yesterday we discovered that our lawn sign had been stolen after only being out for a couple of days. We have some Dion signs in our front window so perhaps, for the next four weeks, if I need to drive my daughter somewhere then I should be checking our car's brakes first...

Elizabeth May's book coming out on Oct. 2

I received a notice from amazon.ca that Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May's book, "Global Warming for Dummies", part of the extensive "... for Dummies" series, is being released in the middle of this federal election campaign on October 2. Coincidentally, it's the same date as the English language party leaders' television debate, one of two debates that were recently the source of so much public outcry when Stephen Harper and Jack Layton tried, unsuccessfully, to exclude her.

Why Dion's election campaign carbon offset makes Canada richer, fairer, and greener

There has been some criticism coming from Conservatives about the Liberal Party's purchasing of credits to offset the greenhouse gas emissions of Stephane Dion's election travel. Basically the criticism is that the purpose of this purchase is simply to appear environmentally friendly, while the jet that the Liberal Party procured for this election is older and less efficient than the jets obtained by the NDP and the Conservatives (it's the only jet the Liberals could get).

The criticism is invalid and here are the reasons:

First of all, Dion committed the cash-strapped Liberal Party to offsetting his campaign travel as far back as February-March 2007. The point is that this commitment was made before decisions were made about campaign travel. Therefore, it gave an extra incentive for the cost-conscious Liberal Party to make his campaign travel as efficient as possible.

Second, the projects that generate voluntary offsets should satisfy a property called "additionality". This means that the money from the sale of offsets (or the anticipated sale of offsets during project planning) should make a difference in whether the project goes ahead or not. The offset vendor used by the Liberal Party, Carbonzero, says that all of its projects are additional. (By the way if you are interested in their voluntary offset methodology document, which contains a very good definition of additionality, look here.)

So the money from the Liberal Party's offsets really made greenhouse gas emissions go down somewhere else. That is how voluntary offsets are supposed to work. According to a Carbon Zero news release, "The offsets purchased by the Liberal Party of Canada will be directed by Carbonzero to a Quebec project which replaces inefficient gas boilers in heating systems with new units employing heating controls and new energy efficient piping systems...the project includes new solar heating collectors and retrofits the buildings to allow heat recovery from domestic wastewater, and switches heat generation systems from natural gas to electricity."
I'm also told that the offset project involves retrofitting non-profit housing - these are people who would have a hard time putting money upfront to make energy retrofits. Money spent on retrofits would otherwise be taken out of money spent on providing non-profit housing. So we can see why this project satisfies "additionality".

Look at what is happening with the money from Stephane Dion's campaign travel offsets:

• Stephane Dion is reducing Canada's greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption. Good for the environment, making Canada greener.
  
• Stephane Dion is making it cheaper for low-income people to live in non-profit housing. Good for social justice, making Canada fairer.
• Stephane Dion is supporting businesses and workers that do energy retrofits, and supporting Canadian manufacturers that build green technology (e.g. see Enerworks, Renewability Energy, ECO GFX, Quantum Renewable, Ecoalternative Energy) Good for the economy, making Canada richer.

Making Canada greener, fairer, and richer: these are the promises that Stephane Dion has been making for a long time, and I think that he has kept his promise in deciding to purchase voluntary greenhouse gas offsets for his campaign travel.

Conservative campaign workers are easier to train

Yesterday I got my first taste, I think, of the Conservative Party ground campaign for the 2008 federal election. I had on my Tournant Vert button and was walking around downtown Kingston, Ontario. A fellow out of the blue turned to me and muttered some anti-environmentalist stuff ending with "... green shaft" before walking away.
Then it occured to me that the C's have an easy time training their volunteers. I can imagine it now. One guy with a bullhorn shouting, "Repeat after me, 'greeen shaaaft'".