Uproar over Uploading

The recent Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO) Conference presented a golden opportunity for Provincial candidates to make their pitch to just about every municipal government leader in the province. This hugely influential alliance of mayors, councillors and regional chairs was anxious to hear exactly what the party leaders had to offer Ontario's cities and towns, and they certainly got an earful.

Unfortunately, some candidates weren't telling them what they wanted to hear.

Harper, Energy and the Environment: It's the Politics, Stupid!

This is getting embarrassing.

Up until recently, the best the Harper government could say about our dismal record on climate change, energy and the environment was that we were doing better than the Americans. But now that even the beleaguered Obama administration is making progress on this front, Canada's intransigence is starting to make us look like we're actually moving backwards.

U.S. to impose new emission rules on power plants, refineries

The Obama administration has announced plans to impose new greenhouse-gas emission rules on power plants and refineries, a move that will increase pressure on the Harper government to introduce its own national emissions regulations in 2011.

The U.S. Environment Protection Agency said over the holidays that it will propose emission performance standards for new and existing fossil-fuel facilities this year, despite opposition from Republicans and some Democrats in Congress.

The sad thing is, the Harper government's blinkered approach to the environment has translated into a bizarre, visceral aversion to anything remotely resembling a national energy policy. Which, for a party that continues to insist they are the best bet for the Canadian economy, may be their most insanely retrograde policy position yet.

Seriously - when even the oil companies are figuring out that renewables are the way of the future, you'd think their buddies in government would be willing to help them out with some sort of coherent policy that would bring us in line with their international competitors and customers.

Of course, now we have a brand new Environment Minister who might finally... oh, never mind.

With serious action ruled out in advance, the Harper government’s environment minister must be a smooth talker. He must be prepared to repeat things that are demonstrably false – as in Canada will reduce its greenhouse-gas emissions by 17 per cent by 2020 from 2005 levels – with a straight face while all those around you are cracking up in derision. When necessary, the minister must bluster.

Peter Kent, a former television presenter, should therefore fit the definition splendidly of what is required of a Harper government environment minister. Since all important decisions are taken by the Prime Minister anyway, it shouldn’t matter that Mr. Kent has no background in the file nor has ever shown any interest in the issues. He is there to rag the puck, so to speak.

To understand the reasoning behind this economically unreasonable position, one need look no further than the poll numbers for Ontario's Liberal government.

Dalton McGuinty has implemented one of the most ambitious and progressive energy policies in North America, and although it's not without its flaws (cough... nuclear... cough), lo and behold it seems that it's actually working. He's implemented a feed-in tariff, similar to systems in Europe, that has resulted in a boom in renewable energy projects and the creation of thousands of much needed manufacturing jobs in the green energy sector. He's well on his way (better late than never) to fulfilling a promise to shut down every coal-fired power plant in the province. He's investing millions in upgrading our energy grid to make it more efficient and less vulnerable to surges and blackouts, and allow for decentralized, greener power generation.

These are exactly the sorts of large scale, long-term projects that save economies but kill governments. Why? Because they cost money and/or raise prices in the short term, and that's all people see. Who cares if we're going to be world leaders in energy and green technology ten years from now when gas is $5.00 a litre and we're all charging our electric cars for pennies a ride? Dammit, my Hydro bill went up two and a half bucks!

Which is why the Ontario Liberals may well find themselves out of power come the next election, and by the time we start reaping the real rewards of their policies, the PCs will be there to gleefully take the credit.

(Of course the converse works as well: the inevitable results of the Harris/Eaves government's popular but short-sighted tax and program cuts have also taken years to take their full effect - just in time for the Liberals to wear that, too.)

These are the political equations which guide Stephen Harper's every move - not economics, and certainly not public benefit. Which is why he will continue to do absolutely nothing on the environment or energy files that won't immediately benefit him politically. In other words, nothing.

Short-term gain, long-term pain. That's how you stay in power.

This is your Finance Minister. And this is your Finance Minister on drugs.

Everyone today seems to be wondering what the hell Jim Flaherty's been smoking. Theories abound regarding the logic behind his recent rants against Dalton McGuinty, Dwight Duncan and Ontario in general - everything from a possible run at John Tory's job to punishment for the province's stubborn refusal to vote Conservative ever again.

One popular theory that even I was starting to suspect was true, is that Harper has written Ontario off entirely and is trying to gain seats everywhere else by indulging in Canada's second favourite sport: Ontario / Toronto Bashing.

There's just one trouble with that theory. The kind of people who form Harper's base out west are also exactly the kind of people who don't take kindly to the Federal government sticking its nose into Provincial business. Even the Saskatoon Star Phoenix, even while agreeing that cutting corporate taxes would probably help Ontario, is positively dumbfounded by Flaherty's blatant meddling.

Paul Wells has an excellent analysis over at Maclean's, and may come the closest to explaining just what the Conservatives might hope to gain from all this. For insight, he turns to the intellectual font from which all of Harper's political strategies spring. From the Book Of Flanagan:

"Our appeal followed the time-honoured advice for raising money by direct mail -- make people angry and afraid, and set up an opponent for them to give against."
— Tom Flanagan, Harper's Team

...As for Ontario's chances of becoming an equalization-receiving province, here's Don Drummond of TD Bank saying the biggest culprit if that ever happens will be the Harper-Flaherty government. "They seem to be bent on making Ontario's situation worse at the moment," Drummond says.

Of course they are. For then Harper will have created a bogeyman Ontarians can be angry and afraid of, so he can do some fundraising against them. It's what he does.

Happily, Duncan and McGuinty aren't buying any of it. They, like most of us here in Ontario, remember all too well what happened last time we listened to Mr. Flaherty, and aren't about to let it happen again.

Following Mr. Flaherty's advice would reduce the province's revenue by $5.1-billion. This would include eliminating the annual health premium - which costs each taxpayer up to $900 a year - and cutting the corporate tax rate to 10 per cent.

“You can't take $5.1-billion out and not close hospitals and not fire nurses and not make cuts to education and not give rise to dramatic increases in tuition and not fire water inspectors and not make cuts to social assistance,” [McGuinty] said. “It just can't be done.”

Regardless of all the political motives and machinations at play, what it comes down to is a battle between two fundamentally different approaches to economics: progressive vs. conservative, bottom-up vs. trickle down, Keynes vs. Friedman in an all-out death match.

We've tried it Flaherty's way before and it was an unmitigated disaster. If Duncan and McGuinty turn out to have a better approach to weathering the coming storm, it might just be enough to convince the rest of the country to try it as well.

At which point Mr. Flaherty can get some first hand experience in the ranks of the unemployed.