As prime minister Justin Trudeau trails in polls, opposition seek to persuade voters environmental policy is a burden
Mass hunger and malnutrition. A looming nuclear winter. An existential threat to the Canadian way of life. For months, the country’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has issued dire and increasingly apocalyptic warnings about the future. The culprit? A federal carbon levy meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
In the House of Commons this month, the Tory leader said there was only one way to avoid the devastating crisis: embattled prime minister Justin Trudeau must “call a ‘carbon tax’ election”.
Hailed as a global model of progressive environmental policy, Canada’s carbon tax has reduced emissions and put money in the pockets of Canadians. The levy, endorsed by conservative and progressive economists, has survived multiple federal elections and a supreme court challenge. But this time, a persistent cost-of-living crisis and a pugnacious Conservative leader running on a populist message have thrust the country’s carbon tax once more into the spotlight, calling into question whether it will survive another national vote.
My argument is I think I don’t think a dislike of Trudeau is driving the unpopularity of the carbon tax. My argument is that misunderstanding of the carbon tax is driving the unpopularity of the carbon tax.
And my rationale is what you’re saying: why is the CT MORE popular than Trudeau if hatred for Trudeau is why the CT is is unpopular? I agree, it DOESN’T follow.
It does. It absolutely follows. I don’t know how you’re thinking of it, like I can’t wrap my head around how you’re getting from A to B here. If people hated the bill on its own then shouldn’t it’d be less popular than Trudeau? It would have the double whammy of being unpopular on its own and being his policy.
Let’s try this, we both agree that a lot of people have a negative opinion of Trudeau? Of course. Therefore anything connected with him is going to have an inherent downward swing of opinion due to the association? Right? Pretty simple. However as we see despite being associated with him it’s still much more popular than he is. Therefore he’s bringing it down more than the reverse.
Imagine there’s a guy drowning and he’s sinking to the bottom, he reaches out and grabs a piece of wood with his outstretched hand. His hands up high above his head clinging into this piece of wood and it’s starting to sink too because he’s too heavy and it overwhelms the woods buoyancy. That’s what I’m saying. Picture this bill like the piece of wood. Does that help?
No.
No.
These relationships can exist, but it’s not the case that they must exist. We know through polling what the favorability is of the CT: low. We know through polling how well understood it is: poor. We know through polling that people who don’t understand it are much more inclined to view it unfavorably. We already have a very straightforward explanation.
Adding in Trudeau is adding a 3rd variable into the mix to explain something that’s already been explained. And when you add him it, you have to start inventing justifications to make things align with his numbers.
It is the antithesis of Occam’s razor