How best to shut down the Canadian Economy? It’s Complicated! – by Parker Gallant (Afordable Energy – June 12, 2020)

http://www.affordableenergy.ca/

On June 7, 2020 the Globe and Mail published an article by Adam Radwanski criticizing an earlier piece by Christopher Ragan and Andrew Potter of McGill University.

The McGill team advocated the “green recovery” plan as an “excellent opportunity to substantially increase the federal carbon tax”–“rather than trying to pick climate-change winners through government spending”.
Ragan, founder of the Eco-fiscal Commission, and a strong advocate for the carbon tax, has suggested it would have to increase to $210/tonne to be effective in the reduction of emissions to contain global warming.

Radwanski’s article shows he isn’t a huge fan of the carbon tax. In his words: “it’s hard to imagine any government deciding to immediately “double or triple” a carbon price in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.”

Anyone with a small amount of common sense would support his view! Raising taxes as we try to emerge from a chronic financial crisis and record unemployment rates does seem a bad plan. As Radwanski notes, the government would need to impose “huge costs on businesses”.

For the rest of this column: http://www.affordableenergy.ca/lourie_and_butts_wrestle