Please Advise! Should Politicians Pander as Cities Burn?

[Editor’s note: Steve Burgess is an accredited spin doctor with a PhD in Centrifugal Rhetoric from the University of SASE, situated on the lovely campus of PO Box 7650, Cayman Islands. In this space he dispenses PR advice to politicians, the rich and famous, the troubled and well-heeled, the wealthy and gullible.]

Dear Dr. Steve,

Last Thursday, with fire threatening Kelowna and evacuations in the works, the city’s Conservative MP Tracy Gray sent a tweet reading, “Canadians cannot afford Trudeau’s carbon tax.”

Was that appropriate?

Signed,

Smoky Joe

Dear Joe,

Timing. Mess it up in comedy, and it's not funny; in politics, same. Last week Gray found out the hard way that circumstances — disasters, for instance — can really mess with your calendar.

Gray's tweet arrived in Kelowna homes just ahead of the flames. Perhaps Gray should have taken her message door-to-door: “Hi there, neighbour. Time to axe the carbon tax! Also, time to evacuate. Grab your toothbrush.”

Gray’s anti-tax tweet was clearly intended as part of a co-ordinated Conservative media strategy, timed to coincide with her leader's schedule. Pierre Poilievre is in the middle of an “Axe the Tax” tour, holding anti-carbon tax rallies across the country. Let’s hope the Conservatives had insurance for that little plan, because it is now a smouldering ruin. The Poilievre event scheduled for this coming Thursday in Whitehorse has been postponed: “Due to severe wildfires,” the party says, “we have made the decision to cancel planned events and postpone them to a future date.”

Awkward. Sort of like: “Our ‘Zombies Aren't Real’ event is cancelled due to organizers' brains being eaten by persons/entities unknown.” It's a cinch Conservatives won’t be moving the rally to Yellowknife either, despite plenty of available space.

These things happen. Fate does to media schedules what cats do to table-top objects. The travel-based reality show The Amazing Race made its TV debut on CBS six days before 9/11. Trivago ads ran in the spring of 2020, even as the world was closing up tighter than a frightened armadillo.

But those were just terrible scheduling coincidences. This carbon tax screw-up is something else entirely. Once again, it proceeds from ideology. These days, there is no good time for climate-denial tweets. As John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather, tweeted in response to Gray: “This is a dangerous and ignorant position to be taking.”

Of course, Gray and Poilievre are specifically attacking carbon taxes. And it is possible to make a case that a carbon tax is not sufficiently effective. But the argument usually offered up is disingenuous. Carbon tax opponents like Poilievre don't want to do more — they generally want to do nothing. They are foxes arguing that the henhouse fence is shabby, therefore, down with fences. Freedom for the captive chickens!

Dr. Steve has seen a lot of carbon tax attacks over the past week, some cheap, some less so. The cheapest of them simply say, “Look, there are fires and storms and stuff happening. So the carbon tax isn’t working!”

It is probably a waste of time to take unserious “Debate me!” arguments seriously. But here goes: Those who point to current climate disasters as evidence the carbon tax is a failure are implicitly admitting that climate change is out of control. Yet these are often the same people who will tell you in the next breath that climate change is a hoax, and oppose every other measure intended to combat it. One questions their sincerity. Or to put it in the proper debate format: Liar, liar, pants on fire. No, for real dude, drop and roll.

The other anti-tax argument is that Canada is a relatively small player on the global emissions map, and a carbon tax is not a sufficiently effective measure anyway. Canada should concentrate instead on lobbying big polluters like China to change their ways.

But this kind of buck-passing solves nothing. And even if China were inclined to listen to us (spoiler: they ain’t), countries that hand out advice had better get their own houses in order first. Who would listen to Canadian preaching if we didn't even have a carbon tax? Cutting down on fast food may be a good idea, but you’re not likely to listen if the advice is coming from Donald Trump.

Carbon taxes by themselves are not enough. But as Canada's Ecofiscal Commission reported: “Our analysis shows that carbon pricing tops the list [of effective options]. It delivers the lowest cost emissions reductions. A steadily rising carbon price can achieve Canada’s target and maintain strong economic growth. It can also generate revenue that can be returned to Canadians to maintain affordability.”

A certain Dave W. recently took issue with this. The point of carbon taxes, he tweeted to Dr. Steve, is to go “High enough that people can't afford to live here and they leave. That's ultimately what they're after.”

Note to Dave: People aren't evacuating to escape the carbon tax. If you don't believe me, check the rest of Tracy Gray’s Twitter feed last weekend. It sure as hell wasn't about taxes.