On dubious honours

There's been plenty written about the Cons' transit tax credit debacle. But one of the more interesting implications doesn't yet seem to have been pointed out.

Here are Greg Weston's observations on what the program's revised projections mean in the cost to reduce emissions:

(T)he Harper government opted for the transit pass tax credit, which the finance department estimated at the time would cost taxpayers about $2,000 to $3,000 per tonne of greenhouse gas eliminated.

Today, that's probably closer to $10,000 a tonne.

To put that in perspective, paying someone 10 grand to park the family clunker for about three months would have the same environmental impact. Where do we sign?

Now, I'm not sure if Weston's math is precisely on target. After all, the Finance Department's original projections were already based on an estimated emissions impact of half that assumed by Environment. Which means that the further revision makes the outcome only three times worse than Finance had estimated, pushing it to the $6,000-$9,000/tonne range.

But that gap is still enough to restore a dubious honour to the program. For awhile, it looked like the Cons' car purchase tax credit had beaten out the transit pass credit as the world's least effective emissions reduction measure. But the new numbers would appear to push the transit tax credit back into the lead - at least until the car purchase credit undergoes a similar review.

Of course, the bigger question is why we're still stuck with a government which has gone to such lengths to lead the world in the waste department. And the fact that they've managed to fall short of even the lowest expectations on the environment (which was of course the top political issue at the time) can only offer more reason to doubt that Con-managed stimulus spending will accomplish anything useful.