Patrick Brown tries to sell carbon pricing to conservatives
You know who liked the environment? Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives are very keen to have you realize.
Or, rather, they’re keen to have reluctant Progressive Conservatives realize, as those habitual Tories try to figure out what to do with a leader who wants to fight climate change by making greenhouse-gas emitters pay.
Those loyalists were stunned when leader Patrick Brown announced his support in a major Ottawa speech for using carbon permits to fight climate change. His own MPPs didn’t see it coming, let alone the rank and file. Brown had opposed carbon pricing when he ran for the leadership less than a year ago.
Former leader Tim Hudak gritted his teeth and said Brown’s doing the wrong thing but can pursue the policy he thinks is right. Tory legislators had to scramble to amend or remove declarations, even petitions, on their websites condemning the very idea as a commie plot. No, no, no, they said, we just meant we’re against carbon-permit trading the way Premier Kathleen Wynne plans to do it. Sorry, was that not clear?
Now Brown is trying to convince his own people he isn’t a plant from the Liberals or the United Nations or some other shadowy fraternity of freedom-haters.
The party’s out with a video, starring firmly conservative MPP Monte McNaughton — the party’s critic for economic development and jobs, at that. He explains that really, this has all been a terrible misunderstanding.
David Reevely: Patrick Brown tries to sell carbon pricing to conservatives
You know who liked the environment? Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the Ontario Progressive Conservatives are very keen to have you realize.
Or, rather, they’re keen to have reluctant Progressive Conservatives realize, as those habitual Tories try to figure out what to do with a leader who wants to fight climate change by making greenhouse-gas emitters pay.
Those loyalists were stunned when leader Patrick Brown announced his support in a major Ottawa speech for using carbon permits to fight climate change. His own MPPs didn’t see it coming, let alone the rank and file. Brown had opposed carbon pricing when he ran for the leadership less than a year ago.
Former leader Tim Hudak gritted his teeth and said Brown’s doing the wrong thing but can pursue the policy he thinks is right. Tory legislators had to scramble to amend or remove declarations, even petitions, on their websites condemning the very idea as a commie plot. No, no, no, they said, we just meant we’re against carbon-permit trading the way Premier Kathleen Wynne plans to do it. Sorry, was that not clear?
Now Brown is trying to convince his own people he isn’t a plant from the Liberals or the United Nations or some other shadowy fraternity of freedom-haters.
The party’s out with a video, starring firmly conservative MPP Monte McNaughton — the party’s critic for economic development and jobs, at that. He explains that really, this has all been a terrible misunderstanding.
David Reevely: Patrick Brown tries to sell carbon pricing to conservatives
