Oops: Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff admits to Liberal greenwashing
Saturday, July 12, 2008 at 07:47 AM Previous Post
Liberal MP Ken Boshcoff has let the cat out of the bag. Apparently Stephane Dion's carbon tax program is just a big vacuum designed to suck money out of Alberta, pass it through Liberal government social programs, and put it in the pockets of whomever the Liberals deem worthy of receiving the cash.
The whole "environmental" thing is just words slapped on to make the tax grab more palatable. That's called "greenwashing".
You know, this just makes Jennifer Wright's argument that her company is being damaged by the Liberals lifting the name "Green Shift" all the more compelling.
Liberal Party leader Stephane Dion's "Green Shift" is nothing like Jennifer Wright's "Green Shift".
Jennifer Wright's "Green Shift" provides services to companies wanting to be more environmentally responsible.
Stephane Dion's "Green Shift" is about taxing the hell out of Alberta and handing the money to Liberal client groups via new social spending programs:
An Ontario Liberal MP said Friday his party's Green Shift carbon-tax proposal will raid Alberta's energy riches and transfer wealth "from rich to poor, from the oilpatch to the rest of the country."
Ken Boshcoff, MP for Thunder Bay-Rainy River, rekindled memories of the controversial national energy program when he stated on a blog post that the Grits' Green Shift program will inflict financial pain on Alberta and its oil and gas industry.
Failing to say much about any environmental benefits of the plan, Boshcoff proudly proclaimed on a political news blog that the Green Shift is the "most aggressive anti-poverty program in 40 years," which will target wealthy provinces -- particularly Alberta.
"The shift will transfer wealth from rich to poor, from the oilpatch to the rest of the country, and from the coffers of big business to the pockets of low-income Canadians," he said in a post on NetNewsledger.com.
Needless to say, Albertan MPs are not impressed:
Calgary Southeast MP Jason Kenney, the federal Conservative pit bull on the Green Shift, said Boshcoff's comments reinforce what the government has argued for weeks -- the carbon-tax plan amounts to divisive politics trying to pit Alberta against other parts of Canada.
"It reveals the real plan here, which is a massive new tax in order to finance increased social spending," Kenney said. "When you scratch below the surface, what you see here is a discredited, old, beggar-thy-neighbour, class-warfare politics."
It certainly makes it unlikely that Alberta or Saskatchewan voters will give the Liberal carbon tax even a moment's consideration.
The real question is whether voters in Ontario would vote for a Liberal carbon tax even if it is generally accepted that it has nothing to do with the environment. Some will, of course, but more than a few will feel cheated by the harsh truth that the Liberals have undergone a "greenwash", and not a very thorough greenwash at that.
And I think that hurts the Liberals on another front. Not only does Boshcoff's admissions make it harder to sell the carbon tax to the electorate, it makes it harder for the Liberals to defend against Jennifer Wright's $8.5 million lawsuit. At the heart of the lawsuit is the contention that her company, Green Shift Inc, is being damaged as the word "Green Shift" becomes associated solely with the Liberal carbon tax plan.
Part of the Liberal defense would be that since both Wright's company and the Liberal carbon tax are promoting environmental benefits, that association can't possibly be damaging.
That part of the defense has been dramatically undermined today by Ken Boshcoff's greenwashing admission.
