this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2024
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TLDR: PBO issued a report (due to an "error") that suggested carbon pricing has a negative economic impact than doing nothing. This error was discovered by third party experts and public critics only upon its release. The premise of "doing nothing" having lower economic costs is false because increased carbon emissions have economic costs, and Canada in breach of global carbon reduction agreements it signed up to has trade and economic costs. None of which PBO accounted for in its erroneous analysis. PBO further states that the government has its own analysis of carbon pricing but he doesn't have the authority to release it.
This sounds to me like PBO is sabotaging the government on this policy issue, 1st by attempting to show that carbon pricing had negative economic impact, and 2nd by suggesting government is withholding its own analysis.
We've spent a century+ pretending carbon pollution has no cost, and the entire history of capitalism -- if not our species -- pretending all other pollutions had no cost right up until that cost was undeniable.
So, not surprising that we're treating CO2 the exact same way. Only this time around, the polluters realized they could get ahead of the issue and convince enough of the general population that carbon pollution is harmless to prevent it from becoming publicly undeniable.
A big part of the problem is that the official opposition hasn't presented a mature alternative. Organizations like the PBO would usually evaluate the top contenders, but there aren't any. None of the Conservatives, NDP, or Bloc are pushing an alternative.
It isn't the PBO's role to make up straw man alternatives to test the effectiveness of government policy.
That an unelected person or department that's part of our federal services has had and will have such a huge effect on this country's politics for several years, the next federal election, and this country's ability to respond to the growing climate crisis is a cause for concern regarding the integrity of our democracy. An investigation is warranted
It's understandable that this person has this much influence, even though it's not an elected position. But I do agree that the PBO tone and positioning is very worrying. There's clearly some agenda in there and the man felt he had something to gain in this biased report. 100% influence peddling, though this is usually hard to prove.
Unelected parliamentary bodies are supposed to support transparency, fairness, and debate - they're not supposed to take a prominent role in shaping policy and communicating it to the public. I think it's good that the PBO issues reports from a supposedly non-partisan perspective, but I don't think it's good how little oversight they themselves receive, as this incident reveals. The Government and Opposition (or all parties) should get advance copies of the PBO's reports for public consumption, and the published reports should include that commentary from the Government, Opposition, and/or all parties