Typical NatPost Arrogance

Andrew Coyne isn't noted for his balanced opinions. He's about as partisan as they come. His opinion of the Liberals is awful but his opinion of the Canadian people seems to be even lower.

In a column entitled, "Harper learns his lesson", Coyne claims the lesson that the Reform Tory boss has learned is that, for us dumb Canadians, form trumps substance every time:

"At any rate, the Tories have learned their lesson. It isn't efficacy by which the parties' commitment to curbing global warming will be assessed, but motion. It isn't progress the public wants, but the appearance of it; not concrete improvements, but gestures of concern. The core of both the Liberal and Conservative plans, the part that will actually make much difference, is "cap-and-trade," a system allowing companies to buy and sell emissions credits under an overall regulatory ceiling. But that takes a while to get up and running, and in the meantime it's important to be seen to be Doing Something -- though not something that will cost anything, at least to any identifiable interest or region.

"And so those same Liberal programs the Tories had taken such care to strangle-- subsidies to retrofit your home, or to encourage wind power, or biomass fuels and so on -- will now be revived: not because they work, but because they fill space. As policy, these programs will remain as problematic as ever -- subsidy only encourages whatever activity it occurs to the planners to subsidize, and only for as long as the subsidy remains, whereas simply putting a price on emissions, as with tradeable emissions credits or carbon taxes, harnesses millions of minds to the task. They find ways to economize no one could have anticipated, and without any of the same perverse side effects. (Offer people a subsidy to switch to more energy-efficient refrigerators, and what do they do with the old ones? Stick them in the basement and use them as beer fridges. Result: more energy consumption than before.)"

There you have it. Canadians are totally frivolous dupes who really aren't smart enough to want real answers to global warming, just soothing charades, oh, and a beer fridge in the basement. That's demeaning enough but what I found particularly interesting was Coyne's clear admission of Stephen Harper's cynical opportunism. Gee, is that sort of like the cut in the GST?

Coyne doesn't speak for me and I don't think he speaks for many of us beyond his delusional circle of partisan misfits. It's no wonder he's at the National Post.