Are the NDP proving once again that they are climate cowards?
Over a decade ago it was considered one of the less radical and broadly palpable climate actions. One that embraced bedrock conservative solutions like consumer choice and markets, while still speaking to the need for collective action and a role for government in the climate crisis. Even when it was criticized by some for being ‘a tax’ progressive and conservative politicians alike were quick to defend British Columbia’s revenue neutral carbon pricing schemes as preferable to heavy handed government intervention, and before the federal government had introduced a national framework for carbon pricing even the most conservative provincial governments had been exploring various pricing options.
But in a span of 24 hours Canada’s Federal NDP and the NDP Premier of British Columbia have both decided to ape their conservative rivals of today who have veered further and further to the right, by suggesting they too are ready to abandon a commitment to carbon pricing and ‘axe the tax’.
Many conservative and progressive political minds alike once agreed (and still do) that ‘changes in pricing signals’ now to help shift energy consumption and support a transition to a more sustainable economy could help us pay less later by averting the most dire consequences of our debauched century of energy gluttony. It wasn’t radical, it was prudent. I’m just old enough to now say with some sense of authority that those were the good old days.
Having ran myself as a federal candidate candidate with the Green Party in the 2015 election (and serving on its Federal Council as the rep from BC) I subsequently returned to the NDP after becoming disillusioned with governance issues that have plagued the party, as well as the lack of attention to Canada’s growing working class affordability and poverty issues. Today, like many ‘greeNDP’ who have endured feelings of outrage and betrayal over the approval of Site-C, or continued old growth logging, the total abandonment of any commitment to carbon pricing demonstrates once again that the NDP are climate cowards. At least the party leaders appear to be.
Instead of seeing co-benefits in climate action that contribute to improving affordability for British Columbians the NDP appear ready to capitulate to the conservative argument that climate action is the cause of our affordability crisis — that the extra dollar you pay at the pump is what’s putting BC families in financial ruin and not runaway housing prices, grocery store CEOs jacking up food prices, or insurance rates skyrocketing with every passing wildfire season and hundred year flood. It’s an outrageously disingenuous take on our affordability crisis and the NDP are poised to embarrass themselves by adopting it now too. This is not the way to reclaim the pocket book politics legitimacy which has been ceded to conservatives, it only shows the two parties are out of ideas and one step behind their conservative rivals.
While the Federal NDP fiddled with Tik-Tok videos and vibes Pierre Poillievre and the Conservatives ate their lunch on blue collar pocket book issues. While the BC NDP sat back and laughed as the BC Liberals imploded the BC Conservatives tapped into the economic populism that by right should be the NDP’s as BC’s party of the working class. Now both the federal and provincial NDP are racing to the bottom to try and catch up with Canada’s reactionary and regressive conservative parties by publicly suggesting they are prepared to eliminate carbon pricing altogether. It shows a staggering lack of political imagination that they could not even take the time to think about what a redesign of carbon pricing might look like in order to contribute to affordability solutions. Even staunchly pro-business voices have suggested some tweaking of the current system can help make it more fair and less punitive for businesses and families feeling the affordability squeeze. So why scrap it altogether? Panic. Perhaps that’s why.
As the NDP have seen their credibility on working class affordability concerns erode over the last few years they now appear to have their back up against the wall. The party has drifted far from the days of “dream no little dreams” a statement first made by Tommy Douglas and again reclaimed by Jack Layton in the era of the ‘Orange crush’. Today, rather than recommit to climate action as a fundamental principle of justice, and grave threat to our prosperity and quality of life, the BC NDP and federal NDP stand ready to abandon one of the only meaningful climate actions BC and Canada have taken this century. One that by all accounts is still timid compared to what is needed. Where once we were challenged by Tommy Douglas and Jack Layton to ‘dream no little dreams’, today we are left to dream no little nightmares as we’ve seen the effects of climate change wreak havoc in our communities as climate leadership by our politicians seems a distant mirage. In offering nothing in its place the NDP is not only falling further into climate cynicism it risks itself becoming the party of climate nihilism.