Amateur advises the Pro

Do your homework

Vincent J. Curtis

17 Nov 23

RE: Poilievre needs to drop the complaining. Op-ed by Craig Wallace.  The Hamilton Spectator 17 Nov 23.

Once again, we see complete political amateurs giving advice to the professionals. Craig Wallace advices Pierre Poilievre to “stop complaining!”  (It’s just too damned effective right now against the reviled Justin Trudeau.)

Wallace doesn’t ask for much, only “a detailed, peer-reviewed, science-based alternative policy.” Wallace needs to do his homework.  Environmental economist Ross McKittrick of the University of Guelph has been doing research on carbon taxes since the 1990s, and he’ll find instructive McKittrick’s article in the October 6, 2020 Financial Post entitled, “If carbon taxes work, why all the new regulations?” Trudeau’s carbon tax was not based on “detailed peer-reviewed science.” Taxing an inelastic demand doesn’t reduce demand.

But here is some peer-reviewed policy alternative: do nothing.  Canada’s contribution to world CO2 emissions is negligible; and China, India, and Russia are paying no attention to this Western mania about plant food in the air. Even if you believe the Western mania, there’s nothing Canada can do about it.  And the hard physics is that a doubling of CO2 from 400 to 800 ppm will cause a 0.72℃ rise in global temperature. Nothing to worry about; it’ll get lost in the noise.

Poilievre will have a lot of brake-slamming and reversing to do in his first term.

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