The debate about carbon tax has reached the equivalent level of discourse of a toddler and frustrated parent arguing about nap time. Premier Brad Wall has plugged his ears, stamped his feet and shouted no as loud as he possibly can. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has angrily pointed at the bedroom and threatened to take dessert away. The rest of us are just embarrassed by the behavior on display.
This is not to say that the carbon tax is a great idea, it has always seemed like the environmental equivalent of a Chili’s gift card – a way to say you’re doing something without putting in thought or effort. Which isn’t to say it’s going to be Wall’s apocalyptic nightmare either, it’ll serve its purpose as a mild annoyance designed to get people thinking about doing things in a less carbon-heavy way.
My concern is not the tax itself, it’s how the federal and provincial governments are reacting to it. In effect, the entire childish approach to debate is going to be bad for Saskatchewan. Wall’s approach of crying on Twitter every time he doesn’t get his way might get him some support in the province, but it’s not actually going to be an effective way of getting federal support for anything happening here. There’s no incentive to work with someone who has begun having public temper tantrums, including his latest – swiftly deleted – bit of online name calling.
Which is not to say Trudeau is blameless. He has abandoned the pretense of negotiation and has just told the provinces what they’re going to be doing. It’s the approach of a man who is tired of pretending he cares about what others think and just wants to get his own ideas pushed through. Not the best approach for the sake of cooperation, however, and while it’s possible this approach was taken because he’s going against a particularly thick Wall on this issue it’s not going to be an approach that garners him many fans at the provincial level if he keeps it up. Worse still, it’s getting close to abandoning Saskatchewan because it’s a difficult child that won’t vote for him anyway, which is bad for the people here.
My main concern is that Wall is sacrificing the province’s relationship with the federal government in order to shore up support for himself. He’s playing up a pre-existing dislike of Trudeau in the province in order to keep his own approval rating high – he knows that the province went largely Conservative federally, and is shifting right to court these voters. It also feels like a distraction in the wake of economic uncertainty – now, instead of touting the province’s economy, he’s going to shout about something else to distract people from an economic downturn. The petulant behavior is not going to stop a carbon tax, or anything else the federal government does that he doesn’t like, but it is going to play to his base. Unfortunately, it’s also not going to do very much to endear him to the federal government, and believe it or not, we need the federal government. Our cities need infrastructure dollars and we need federal support for other projects in the province. I feel as though Wall is sacrificing this need for personal gain.
In effect, Wall and Trudeau both need to stop thinking about their personal goals and start thinking about the people who put them in power. For Trudeau, that means being a bit more willing to work with the provinces, or at least maintain a facade that he is.
He can’t abandon the provinces, even the ones that don’t seem to like him very much. For Wall, that means he needs to stop having tantrums and start talking to his federal equivalents without touching his Twitter feed. Both need to remember that it’s not about them, it’s about the people they serve. Voters need to remember that too, and reject them if they start getting too childish.
