Carbon taxes back on the table, at least for 48 hours

Very pleased to hear some more serious discussion of carbon/GHG taxation in Canada today. CBC's the Current had two pieces on carbon taxes today (see link below to listen), one of which was more or less a debate between Terry Corcoran (Financial Post Editor) and Andrew Van Iterson (Green Budget Coalition). The piece was spurred by last week's news reports that the Liberals were supposedly considering a carbon tax. Alas, the Liberals are now saying it was all a misunderstanding - they are considering pricing emissions, but not creating a carbon tax.

Link to Cnews story on Liberal rejection of carbon tax
Link to Friday's Globe story on Liberal development of carbon tax
Link to today's CBC discussion of carbon taxation

My comments: Very disappointed to hear the Liberals reject carbon taxes again. Dion must know better - he is clearly well-informed on environmental policy in interviews - so I guess this is just politics. The Conservatives, of course, were excoriating the Liberals for the idea, although I'm sure the economically-educated among them would admit that a revenue-neutral carbon tax is actually one of the cheapest options we have. I think they have made a mistake in using the carbon tax idea as a club to beat the Liberals with - they have cut themselves off from what could have been a policy coup. If the Conservatives had come out with a sensible tax shifting proposal, they could have had support from environmental groups and big business simultaneously.
On the plus side, the brouhaha led to more coverage of the idea, and I thought some very effective advocacy from Van Iterson. Corcoran's arguments really seemed like a series of red herrings to me - calling taxes "arbitrary" (all taxes are arbitrary) and attempting to paint a carbon tax as ineffective and morally self-righteous. He seemed caught off guard by the idea of revenue-neutrality, and actually ended up admitting that a revenue-neutral tax shift would actually have some merit.