As the election season approaches, the federal Liberals are attempting to claim the high ground on climate change by drawing a stark contrast between themselves and the NDP — and the NDP are fighting back.
On Friday, Environment and Climate Change Minister Steven Guilbeault and Energy and Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson published a letter addressed to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, accusing him of caving to the Conservative Party after he backed away from carbon pricing earlier this month.
“It was very disappointing to see your New Democratic Party, once an advocate for climate action, fall victim to the Conservative Party of Canada’s disinformation campaigns and empty slogans surrounding carbon pricing,” the letter reads.
“Unfortunately, this has only further reinforced the view of many Canadians who saw during the last federal election your party lacks a credible climate plan.”
The letter comes two weeks after Singh hinted the NDP may abandon its support for carbon pricing. Singh did not say he would ditch the policy, but in his own attempt to distance his party from the federal Liberals, he accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of playing politics by offering “advantages” to Atlantic Canada, referring to last year’s decision to pause the carbon price on home heating oil.
The NDP shot back Friday night with its own letter, addressed to Guilbeault and Wilkinson and signed by Singh.
"The reality is that you bought a pipeline," the NDP letter read. "Your government has spent nine years letting the biggest polluters off the hook."
In response to the Liberals needling Singh with an offer to explain carbon pricing, the NDP returned fire.
"There are no lessons to take from you about fighting the climate crisis, because your record is one of broken promises, watered down policies, and caving to oil and gas lobbyists," Singh wrote.
James Rowe, an associate professor at the University of Victoria, says the letter sent to Singh is important to see in its political context.
“It’s not meant for Jagmeet Singh; it’s meant for the rest of us,” he said. “It's an effective electoral play on [the Liberals’] part, claiming they're taking the principled stand on climate change and climate policy, and the NDP is blowing with the wind.”
The letter also notes NDP MPs Laurel Collins (who serves as the party’s environment critic) and Alexandre Boulerice (the NDP’s Quebec lieutenant and ethics critic) have previously endorsed carbon pricing, suggesting their words “now ring hollow.”
That was a smart move on the part of the Liberals, Rowe says, because it supports the Liberal narrative that the NDP is flip-flopping for political gain. Essentially, the Liberals are casting Poilievre’s Conservatives as climate deniers, and the NDP as “dancing to Poilievre’s tune.”
“That's the narrative that they're going to be pumping out,” he said. “Without the NDP filling the vacuum with a really compelling alternative, then it's hard not to be somewhat convinced by that strategic play on their part.”
It was a tactical mistake for the NDP to hint at opposition to the Liberals’ carbon pricing without offering an alternative plan, he said. Without explaining how the NDP would focus on the fossil fuel industry, perhaps by using a windfall profits tax and redirecting the revenue to support climate action, it’s left to the public to imagine what the party might pitch. That left the door open for Liberals to pounce, he said.
It remains to be seen if this strategy will pay dividends for Liberals, but in the 2021 election the Liberals were widely seen to outflank the NDP on climate change, suggesting it could happen again.
Queens University political studies professor Jonathan Rose told Canada’s National Observer that as an election nears, it makes sense the Liberals will try to make the case that they alone are the party to stand up to Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives.
“The challenge for the NDP will be to navigate the very fine line between maintaining independence between the Liberals and not appearing to support the Conservatives,” he said. “In some sense, the tactics now are a bit of inside baseball. What really matters is how the public responds to the competing narratives.”
As the Liberals attempt to distinguish themselves from the NDP, Poilievre is still trying to frame the next election as a “carbon tax referendum.” He is effectively still setting the terms of the public debate, and is trying to drive wedges between the NDP, Bloc Québécois, and Liberals using the carbon price.
Despite the carbon price leaving more money in most people’s pockets through rebates, the weakness of the carbon price is its timing.
Even though the carbon price is not a major driver of inflation, it has contributed to the rising cost of gas and home heating before clean alternatives are widely available and affordable. Some experts suggest the carbon price should have been implemented after other climate policies were put in place.
“That order was wrong, and always made the policy prone to the precise attack that Poilievre is launching right now,” Rowe said. “They left themselves with a super soft underbelly by pursuing the policy in the way that they did, and now we're reaping the consequences.”
Comments
Both the Liberals and NDP are right in their criticisms of the other. That makes their divisions even more stark. Both created strategic blunders by either puttiing the majority of their political eggs in one carbon tax basket while splitting priorities to include fossil fuel production, or not having a viable alternative ready and waiting. And both, but especially the Libs, are painfully hypocritical and act like children with all the sniping.
Instead of taxing the populous (rebates or not) and punishing polluters exclusively, we should have seen big renewable energy and urban transit projects on the ground all over the country by now with all the news about thousands of jobs created and big economic multipliers and tangible double digit reductions in emissions and double digit growth in electrification.
Now there is an electorate itching to punish the status quo. Be certain that support for Poilievre is only a substitute for punishing Trudeau and his NDP backers. Once the punishment has been meted out, the Conservatives will cause major voter regret if they launch into convoy law and conspiracy-run healthcare. If they are smart, they'd hold back the damage enough to secure a second term before letting their attack dogs loose, especially if progressive parties are too busy tearing themselves apart with infighting.
Most of us her
...here think one term with Poilievre will be too much. But the Libs, NDP and Greens seem intent on creating division among themselves, which makes Poilievre's task kindergarten easy and lets him off of any call to define his policies. Splitting the centrist and progressive vote instead of uniting it seems assured now that compromise and consensus building have been rejected by two very important parties.
Progressives need to be prepared to hunker down for at least four years (likely 8) with a demolition company pretending to be a government leading the nation into the 19th Century.
There is some solace to be had in that renewables are rising fast and will limit the worldwide expansion of hydrocarbons by sheer economic might alone by the early 2030s no matter which government is in power. And if current trends hold, Poilievre will likely find himself negotiating with an intelligent liberal woman leading the hugely dominant economy across the border who could shut the man's penchant for convoy, MAGA Lite rhetoric up by merely raising an eyebrow.
Except that the NDP completely ignores the overarching fact, AS USUAL, that THEY have yet to be in charge of the federal government, EVER, and refuse to acknowledge that it's one whit different from provincial governance, THEIR wheelhouse, and this despite the regular "compromises" made there by them for the usual reasons!
The NDP are seriously math-challenged, i.e. they don't understand how problems MULTIPLY federally, OR that if they actually threw in their lot with fellow progressives like they ALSO ACTUALLY gave a crap about the country, most of the drama would subside.
This is arguably con-level hypocrisy, not to mention an undeniable measure of stupidity.
And as I keep saying, if you want to know about how bad it could get if the cons WIN, just look at Alberta where the insanely incompetent UCP is now moving in to control our cities because they are progressive bastions with progressive mayors.
And again, to those who continue to sink (sigh) into the snark and nihilism of the effing algorithms and/or the cult of personality, Trudeau is a mere man, NOT the whole Liberal Party, OR a kid, OR automatically without substance just because he happens to have some style. That would be Poilievre, the psycho in shades.
So way to go. The two parties who represent the majority of Canadians duke it out over who has the worst plan to address climate change, and so the annoyed voters will put the ugly party who ignores it into power in the worst crisis of the planet s history.
Jagmeet, if you don t love Canada more than the sound of your own shrieking, how about the planet?
The Liberals are in charge, they re doing something, and your attacks are only encouraging a win by the Bad Guys. You will never become PM and I won t vote NDP as long as you re there.
I m not going to say Conservatives because I ve known Conservatives all my long life and this nasty bunch and the LOO are not them.
Yeah, good job eh? How to keep our spirits up there guys, although in fairness, Jagmeet doesn't "shriek," he's a quiet guy, that's the planet we hear....
"LOO?"
On that business of these cons being unrecognizable compared to the former Progressive Conservatives we all feel so nostalgic for, there has to be something in the basic philosophy of the political right that lends itself to what's happened, because something sure as hell HAS happened.
I think it's swelling the usual ranks of those with faith in economic doctrines with believers in RELIGIOUS doctrines, a whole other animal. Doctrines are inherently prescriptive and rigid, closed systems created to deal with the open-ended uncertainties of life but that puts them fundamentally at odds with the realities of our natural lives, including our own intrinsic, fearful human nature. Then add Mother Nature on a revenge tour and watch the denial double down.
Think back on your brief childhood flirtation with Santa Claus that evaporated under the weight of reason and the sheer impossibility of THAT myth, but how the religious one survived despite its similarity. Turns out that way more people than makes sense simply can not handle the truth AT ALL, and irrationally PREFER their lies.
The left side of the spectrum gravitates more to the flux of an open mind, which is what qualifies US to be the adults in the room, the people in charge, but our natural tolerance for those on the opposite side of the political spectrum is just another thing that has to change with the reality before us.
So I'd say never say you won't vote for ANY progressive party, regardless of the "leader;" lobby instead for them to unite and quit endangering us all.
Maybe it s just the message that shrieks out to me; I just get a jittery impatient sense of shrill frustration out of him. Maybe just me? I mean yes he s a handsome charming charismatic guy. I ve known too many for that to impress me. And maybe if he were calmer he d have made better choices. I don t think he s as stupid as his decisions. But so ambitious. He wants it so bad. Keeps hopping into disaster.
Leader of the Opposition. Why say his name and give him more attention?
I didnt say I wont vote for ANY progressive party; I have and will again should they ever recover. Including the Progressive Conservatives like under Richard Hatfield a lifetime ago. He was incredible in bringing New Brunswick out of the Dark Ages and into competition with California. Way ahead of the rest of the country. Robert Stanfield was good too.
I hear you about the mindset and effort thing. Many cousins of mine consider themselves old fashioned (Hatfield) Progressive Conservatives while voting for harper, higgs and inevitably pp. Cannot penetrate that fixed viewpoint with facts; they re set for eternity to anyone claiming the label. Imprinted somehow on the name/identity.
Only hope right now that I can see is for all women to wake up to the real and immediate threat to our hard won "rights' since the 60s, and the youngest voters. If they ll turn up, unlike the ones before them, there might be a chance. Another minority government could work in the short term until they can sway the masses enough to what s happening.
It worked with us Boomers 50 years ago though that s forgotten. Could again.