Dion's Gamble

I've been away from the blogging keyboard for a while. It's been busy here at Castle Evil between the end of the training year with my unit and the end of the school year at my civilian job. Now that the lazy days of summer are here, I can again wax semi eloquently about the issues of the day. Today I'm going to look at Stephane Dion's carbon tax proposal. Now I'm not going to look at it from a stand point of will it work or won't it or what it will do to the economy or our greenhouse gas emissions. I'm going to look at it from the standpoint of how it will affect Dion politically. On first blush, it would seem that proposing a new tax would be a dangerous thing for a politician to do. It will be too if Dion is unsuccessful in convincing the voter that the tax will indeed be revenue neutral. To some extent this is a tough sell, as governments don't generally lower taxes, but what might make it an easier sell are the Conservatives. Why will the Tories make this an easier sell for Dion? Simple, by attacking the proposal for not being revenue neutral. The Harper Tories have been, shall we say, truth challenged pretty much since the day they took power. This lack of veracity being used in constant attacks on the Liberals and Dion have worn thin on the voter, to the point where at best people are now ignoring the Tory rhetoric to worse, believing the opposite. If the worse case for the Tories is what's happening out there, then every time Harper and his merry band open their mouths, they're helping the Liberals.

The fact that the Tories are so busy attacking the plan also speaks to something that will help Dion. That his plan has the possibility of being popular. The Tories have demonstrated that by nature they are basically bullies. When cornered bullies will lash out at who they see as a threat until they can find a way to run away. Same is true of Harper and his party. Having been unable to bully the Liberals into submission in the House or in the courts, the Harper Tories are now trying to bully the Canadian public with the gloom and doom scenarios they once accused the Liberals of. This means that the Tories are scared of the plan, and the only likely reason the Tories are scared of the plan is not just that it might work, but more importantly might get the Liberals more votes.

So is this carbon tax really a gamble for Dion? I would think not. With putting the plan out in the open, Dion is forcing the Tories to act like an opposition party and react to the policy announcement, which makes the Harper Conservatives look less and less like a government and more and more like the buffoons they are. Also, the only people who will be truly annoyed at the tax wouldn't be voting Liberal no mater what so Dion has little to lose there as well. Heck Dion could go out of his way to, using Harper's words, screw over Alberta and it wouldn't cost him a vote where it counts, outside of the Tory base in that province. The proposal has the possibility of luring the Green and NDP votes back to the Liberal fold and not sending any of the current Liberal base away to any of the other parties. It's really a win-win situation for Dion and the Liberals. Unless Harper is very careful and goes on the attack by presenting an alternate proposal, as opposed to the defence of attacking the plan, it will be a major loss for the Conservatives outside of Alberta.