Of course, just how conservative these governments really are may be doubted; the country would seem less to have shifted right than Conservative parties have shifted left. The exception, of course, is carbon pricing, which has become the bete noire of Conservative parties across the developed world; opposition to it is now the badge of Conservative identity. Incoming Conservative governments that wouldn’t dream of, say, breaking up the bureaucratic-union stranglehold on the public schools, feel no qualms about abolishing carbon taxes. Conservatives could and should have argued for carbon taxes as a replacement, not only for regulation, but for other taxes, using the revenues collected from carbon taxes to slash personal and corporate tax rates. But that opportunity, too, was passed up, so count higher income taxes as another cost of the Conservative carbon tax obsession.

Source: National Post April 16, 2019 00:22 UTC