Uncapped

Yesterday, I noted that the Libs' supposed cap and trade plan is utterly lacking in credibility since it doesn't include any targets to actually define a cap. But since the loudest response to the Libs' lack of any targets for the next 39 years has somehow been a series of high-pitched shrieks that the Libs' plan to do nothing is going too far, let's note how bizarre that response sounds coming from the Cons and their oil-patch allies.

After all, the Cons have been promising a cap-and-trade system from the day they took office, even if it's been coupled with a perpetual "wait 'til next year" message to delay any real action. In 2008, the Cons explicitly hyped "Developing a Cap and Trade System to Cut Pollution and Greenhouse Gas Emissions" in their platform as their alternative to a carbon tax. Once Barack Obama was elected in the U.S., they started pushing a continent-wide cap-and-trade system. And they've continued to praise the idea when it's been raised at the provincial level.

So the Cons' overwrought response to the mere mention of a cap-and-trade system looks to make for a radical shift in position, from at least pretending to care about dealing with greenhouse gas emissions to portraying any action whatsoever as being out of the question. And while the Libs aren't doing much to offer an alternative, voters concerned about the environment should note that they do have choices who haven't yet decided to abandon the issue.