As Canada gets ready to elect a new government, energy and environmental policy are on the front burner. The Liberal “Green Shift” plan conforms to two of the “first principles” of liberal governance: maximizing wealth redistribution, and maximizing control of the commanding heights of the economy. Liberal leader Stephane Dion’s plan would satisfy both principles by levying a federal carbon tax, then doling out the revenues “progressively” while letting the federal government expand its control of the commanding heights of the energy sector and provincial governance by tweaks of the tax code generally invisible to the public.
