Jagmeet's Carbon Capitulation

On Singh's Damascene Conversion

“It’s misleading to tell Canadians we can magically eliminate 50 per cent and more of our GHG emissions in just nine years, without enormous cost and disruption, especially for certain workers and regions. The NDP score even lower than the Greens on climate sincerity because it is not credible that they would destroy Canadian industries as the means to achieve their target.”

Mark Jaccard told us in 2021 that the NDP’s Climate plan was a joke. It was the only thing that nearly moved me off my decision to vote for the NDP in 2021 as a form of protest for WE. I knew then that it was a sign of the NDP’s fundamental unseriousness, but I made a decision that sending a signal to the Liberals was worth more than the price I was paying in voting for a party that was full of shit on climate change. The rationalization was simple - the NDP would be more serious if they got the actual balance of power.

Turns out, I was dead wrong. Jagmeet Singh today announced what you might call the concept of a plan to oppose the Trudeau carbon tax on the grounds that it puts the burden on the “backs of working people”, an attack line straight out of the CPC playbook. He is opposing a carbon tax he has voted for 4 times this year alone because he’s a fraud, a cancer, and completely and utterly willing to throw everything he has ever believed in in his life for the prospect of maybe, finally getting the validation he so desperately wants and will never get.

This is a horrible decision politically for Jagmeet - it won’t do a god damn thing to stop NDP voters who have switched to Poilievre, and it makes you look insincere and weak. Obviously it’s worth a question of whether and why a party that has to defend seats in Skeena and Kootenay and Comox and Campbell River and Timmins ever willingly signed up for a carbon tax brought in by a party of urban elites in the first place, given the easy way to demagogue the policy as built by people in cities for people in cities. (That rural and regional Canadians get a bigger rebate is relevant on policy grounds, but perception problems were always a risk.)

But at this point, Singh has taken the damage he’s going to take on his right flank. The damage is done. From here, his choices were either to stand up for his beliefs and earn credibility for standing up for the courage of his convictions, or to throw them out of the window for perceived political expediency, while invigorating the Greens. Because spoiler, the actual winner of this column is the Greens, because if you’re 25, care about climate change, care about the Palestinian people, and think Trudeau is too [insert your complaint here], the NDP just took a shit on the idea of wanting your votes.

Remember, the NDP were proposing a 50% cut in emissions by 2030. Now, their climate policy is to do something at some point. Not exactly a coherent strategy, but I think “coherence” is one of those words that New Democrats have collectively decided don’t exist because to remember what being a coherent political party is like would give them a showing of just how fucking pathetic they’ve become.

And that’s why Jagmeet’s a cancer to the party and the country.

..

I think I’ve made my objections to the current state of the Liberal Party well known by now. I want a serious, progressive vision for this country. I want progressive politics to be viable in this country at the next election. It is not a lack of progressivism that makes me mad at Justin Trudeau, but the fact of my progressivism. I like quite a lot of what this government, and the NDP by their side, have done. I am happy that a half million people have gotten dental care who otherwise wouldn’t have. I will be thrilled if and when the first people to get prescriptions for anxiety, depression, knee pain, or whatever get their relief. Part of why I want a more serious progressive politics is that so much of this government’s progress is at risk to a Poilievre landslide.

The dirty little secret of Canadian politics is that the NDP often propose ideas that end up being things the Liberals want to do. Take banning replacement workers - I genuinely believe that Seamus wanted to do that. I also believe that the pressure of the NDP forced that into a more prominent position and up the priorities list. Even when the idea is a “Liberal” one, the NDP’s very existence and threat to take Liberal seats keeps the Liberals on their toes. It is a very good thing for this country that we have two parties that can make each other better.

What the NDP are doing is ruining that situation. It is beholden to a man who is fundamentally unserious and fundamentally breaking a Canadian institution. Jagmeet’s NDP is a disgrace, led by a man who holds the Canadian people in such significant contempt he thinks we’re all too stupid to know we’re being lied to. Jagmeet thinks that the country is too stupid to notice when he’s talking about his deep understanding of the cost of living crisis while wearing a Rolex. He thinks we’re too stupid to remember that he has voted for the carbon tax more times than we can count before he suddenly had his Damascene conversion. He also thinks we’re too stupid to realize he’s doing this ~100 hours before the polls close in Elmwood, where his candidate is in a tight fight against the CPC.

I know that people who have read my work will know this stat by heart by now, but the NDP tossed Mulcair in 2016 because he had the temerity to only win 28 seats in English Canada and only hold 16 Quebec seats. Even writing off the 15 Quebec seats that the NDP have lost, Jagmeet has gotten less seats than Mulcair. Not once. Twice. In 2019 he won 23 seats in English Canada + Boulerice, and then won 24 + Boulerice in 2021. Both times, worse than what Mulcair managed. And yet he stays, poisoning the well of Canadian politics again and again.

I used to say my distaste for Singh was merely professional, but it’s not, and it never really has been. I’m sure he treats his kids fine and whatnot, but it is personal. I am personally offended by the utter catastrophe that is his leadership of the NDP. I am offended by the 2 years of lying about a government only alive because of your vote. I am offended by the fact that Jagmeet Singh is so willing to casually lie to the Canadian people. And I’m offended that so many fucking New Democrats tolerate the intolerable, both in form and in results.

For all of Singh’s histrionics, he ripped up the Confidence and Supply Agreement because he’s polling badly and he did this because he’s polling badly. He doesn’t actually believe the carbon tax hurts the poor and middle class, because if he did he’d have used his leverage to fix it. We know from his complete refusal to advocate for a new taxation and subsidy model that he knows what everyone else knows, which is that the economic benefits of the carbon tax go down the higher up the income scale you go. He knows this. For the character he plays in front of the cameras, he’s not actually braindead stupid. And yet, he’s willing to debase himself to try and get the 15% in Leger or the 16% in Ipsos back up to 19%. Frat hazings are less pathetic than Jagmeet’s ritual humiliation, mostly because at least a frat hazing means you actually get the thing you want at the end of it.

Jagmeet’s Carbon Tax capitulation won’t save the NDP seats. It won’t advance progressive causes. It won’t make the air easier to breathe. It only serves as a reminder of how far the NDP have debased themselves with a pathetic, sorry excuse of a leader, a puppet to Poilievre, and a disgrace to every cause he claims to care about.

And the worst part is I knew it before I voted for his party. It is one of the great regrets of my life that I used such a precious gift on such a dishonourable party. Don’t make my mistake again.