Campaigning on Climate: Climate, Politics, and Elections

We have a special climate politics focused show to open the new season. It's a time of elections here in Canada and the U.S. As multiple campaigns heat up, we’re asking, where does climate fit in as an issue? 

David Keith and Ed Whittingham chat with political strategist and co-host of The Strategists podcast, Stephen Carter, to understand where climate fits as a priority issue for voters. They discussed whether or not climate can still be a winning issue, how proponents of the consumer facing carbon tax failed to make it politically resilient, and why climate remains a left-right oppositional issue in Canada and the U.S.

About Our Guest:
Best known as one of Canada’s leading political strategists, Stephen Carter played a leadership role in the rise of Mayor Naheed Nenshi, Premier Alison Redford, and Mayor Jyoti Gondek. The National Post, CBC and other political commentators have described him as a “political mastermind.” He is a former premier's office and mayor's office chief of staff, and was National Director of Campaign Strategy for Hill+Knowlton Strategies from 2012 - 2015.

Produced by Amit Tandon & Bespoke Podcasts

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Ed Whittingham: I'm Ed Whittingham, and you're listening to Energy vs. Climate, the show where my co host David Keith, Sarah Hastings Simon, and I debate today's energy challenges, highlighting the Canadian context. Welcome to Season 6, Episode 1. We have a special climate politics focused show to open the new season. It's a time of elections here in Canada and the U.

S. On October 19th, residents of British Columbia will go to the polls, choose between David Eby's BCNDP, the current Progressive Governing Party, and the BC Conservatives, led by John Rustad, someone we can charitably call a climate skeptic. Then on November 5th, Americans face their own stark contrast between Kamala Harris and her Democrat colleagues.

And Donald Trump and the Republican Party. Lastly, though nothing has been called federally in Canada, a few things have happened in the past two weeks that will likely lead to an election earlier than required under law. The leading contender to be Canada's next Prime Minister, Pierre Polliev, has said that he will abolish Canada's consumer facing carbon tax as one of his first acts of parliament, a position that is supported by several prominent progressive politicians across Canada.

So far, in none of these current and future elections, does climate policy factor in as a priority for voters? Can climate still be a winning issue for progressive candidates? How did proponents of the consumer facing carbon tax, like David, Sarah, and me, fail to make it politically resilient? And given its gravity, why does climate persist to be a left right oppositional issue instead of a post partisan one?

To help us make sense of the political dimensions of climate past and present, David and I chatted with the inimitable Stephen Carter. of the Strategist Podcast. Best known of one of Canada's leading political strategists, he played a leadership role in the rise of Mayor Nath Denshi, Premier Alison Redford, and Mayor Jody Gondek.

The National Post, CBC, and other political commentators have described him as a political mastermind. He joined us for a recorded conversation from his home in Calgary, Alberta. A reminder that Sarah's on medical leave for the time being, so it's just David and me speaking with Stephen. We look forward to having Sarah back on ABC As soon as she's able to be back.

Now, here's the show. Stephen Carter, welcome to energy versus climate. 

[00:02:16] Stephen Carter: Thank you very much. I don't know which side I'm on. I'm pretty excited. 

[00:02:20] Ed Whittingham: We'll figure that out before we get, before I go any further, David, do you have any cards to put on the table with regards to election campaigning on climate? Uh, 

[00:02:29] David Keith: it's a lot less important than it used to be.

It's clear that climate is not near the top of the Canadian election campaign, which will kick off soon, whatever soon means. And it sure as heck isn't very close to the top of the U. S. election campaign, which is fighting itself out now. 

[00:02:46] Ed Whittingham: So let's, let's use these upcoming elections as a jumping off point to talk about the political dimensions of climate broadly.

So let's start. And by the way, hearing your voice on a podcast I'm recording, I've, I've got to resist the temptation to go into Zayn Velji mode. I was going to say, let's move to our first segment, our first segment, BC, can climate be a winning issue for NDP candidates in the BC election. And I say that, I ask that because there's such a stark contrast between the BC conservatives, the BC NDP, John Rustad, the, the leader of the BC conservatives, David Eby, the premier and head of the BC uh, NDP, John Rustad seems to be an old school climate denialist.

Um, you know, while acknowledges humans have CRI contributed to climate change, uh, he criticizes the Climate Doom Cult and it seems like it's a big. Opening for the BC NDP differentiate themselves, but as David just said, you know, it's kind of climate as a, as a topic, it's kind of waned amongst voters right now.

So going back to it, can it be a winning issue for NDP candidates in that election? 

[00:04:00] Stephen Carter: Well, I'm not, I'm not sure that it can. I mean, right now the climate has dropped to number six and the overall issues. This has turned into a very polarizing issue that is, Uh, fundamentally changed the elections. I think that sometimes people have overestimated how dramatically people have moved away from climate as a primary issue, but nonetheless, it seems that the cost of living is so high as an issue and it is so contraindicated to the climate, especially through the carbon tax, which is the primary tool that we've been using to, uh, That kind of show, because, you know, we can have a big discussion about what is effective and what's not effective, but what we're trying to do in politics is just show our bona fides, right?

We're actually doing something. So we're showing through the carbon tax that we're doing something without necessarily achieving anything. 

[00:04:50] David Keith: The extraordinary polarization in politics is kind of evident that this huge gap between, you know, crisis and denialism. So, yeah, John Rusted is a kind of classical climate denialist, but one of the main.

talking points he has is that there isn't a climate crisis, the climate isn't an acute crisis, and that actually happens to be something that I agree with. I think in many ways you do too, Ed. I think measured by the sort of classic way we measure kind of acuteness of crises, either in their real impacts on people or the way they are playing out in politics, I don't think climate's a crisis, but I think it's a really serious piece of public policy that an environmental and human threat that needs to get engaged, but somehow that middle ground between not a problem at all and not a crisis, uh, the middle ground at which reality actually lives is one that's not getting sufficiently addressed.

[00:05:40] Ed Whittingham: Yeah. And we actually had a really interesting show a few seasons back with Andrew Weaver, who for a time was the head of the Green Party of BC and he was part of that. supply and confidence agreement between the BC Greens and the NDP. What I should have said is that he is first and foremost a climate scientist about running on scientific fact versus running on good sound bites.

And he, he talked about the tension there. So I, I do agree with you, David, and that climate change is not a crisis say on the order of nuclear war being a crisis or even I'm deeply concerned about AI and AI polluting the internet commons. I think that's a tremendous crisis and I'm in heartened, uh, I'm heartened by what the the legislation in California now where they're actually trying to get to put some guardrails on AI.

But going back to Stephen, I don't know if you can successfully run on climate being an issue and as a real point of differentiation, unless you're pressing that fear button, unless you're referring to it as a crisis instead of, well, it's a big public policy issue that we should tackle. 

[00:06:46] Stephen Carter: Especially in campaigns.

Uh, Kim Campbell once said that campaigns were no time to be talking about the issues. Uh, that is in fact true. It's true. We talk about the issues that the people want us to talk about, not about the issues that are real, uh, or that are, that are oppressing. We talk about things that people care about. Uh, it's one of the things that I think has gone horribly wrong with the, the, uh, Trudeau government is they continue to talk about things that we didn't ask for.

No one really asked for the pharma care program. No one really asked for dental, uh, childcare worked really well, but that was now five years ago, right? So things have shifted. Things are different. Everybody right now wants us to be talking about, uh, you know, the cost of living, the cost of housing, that those are the issues that have become, uh, urgent and crises.

Um, And so those are the ones that are going to get the attention. 

[00:07:34] Ed Whittingham: I'd love to pick up, you'd mentioned things that have gone horribly wrong for the Trudeau government. It seems like we have a litany of those things recently, not least of which is recent by election results, uh, in Verdun in Montreal. I forget the full name of the writing and, and then Toronto St.

Paul, uh, earlier in the summer. But one of the things that's gone horribly wrong is the consumer facing carbon tax. And full disclosure, I was part of that environmental NGO crowd that pushed for it, that really celebrated. We're on the sidelines with the pom poms when we first got it in Alberta with the Notley government.

And then later with the pan Canadian climate framework, the federal government committed to it in December, 2016. And we thought, Here we are, we've got it, it's going to be sticky, we're doing what all the economists have told us to do, and it's not a left right issue because it's just smart. Well, fast forward to today, and the latest progressive leader to capitulate on it is David Eby, the B.

C. NDP premier and following the lead of Jagmeet Singh, who I thought really cynically announced that, uh, he was now against the consumer facing curb attacks on the eve of those two by elections, all major Alberta NDP leadership candidates were against it, I say that Although I really don't know where Naheed Nenshi stands on it.

I suspect that he would be against it. And with all this capitulation, there's been no political consequences for those progressive leaders for doing so. I haven't seen a major. Environmental NGO, um, and I'll say like the one I used to run, the Pembinence dude has got up and really made a politician pay for that.

So back to Steven, why, how and why did proponents of the consumer facing carbon tax fail to really make it? A politically resilient policy tool. 

[00:09:29] Stephen Carter: Well, I think that the number one problem was the, you know, you mentioned listening to the economists, economists are not political scientists and political science is a different, you know, type of understanding how the electorate works, uh, is, is something that is fluid.

It doesn't just. And anytime you have a polarization in government or polarization in politics, it is ripe for picking an issue that was settled and taking it and turning it around. Roe versus Wade was pretty much settled. I mean, if you looked at the polls, it was not something that people were edging for.

But nonetheless, in the United States, they went after it. They go, people go after things that they think can become wedge issues. And when this is one of those things, it was never particularly popular with the right wing, uh, even though it was supposed to be, and even the left, when we, when, when, when the progressives jumped in on it and became, and it became the solution for the left, it was actually a right wing solution masquerading as a left wing solution.

And that made it really easy, I think, for, for people to not be 100 percent committed to it. And, uh, ultimately we're still a small economy with a small impact and people were able to say, well, why am I paying for this when I, when we're not really making any significant difference. And. When you couple that with a cost, with a, with a cost of living crisis, suddenly that which was all agreed to and understood becomes a significant political liability.

And if the liberals had had any sense at all, they would have used this last three year term to change the way that we looked at carbon, but they were just absolutely stuck on a previous solution. Uh, instead of moving to where the population is and say, say what you will about democracy, Democracy is about reflecting where the population is, not necessarily about leading the population where they need to go.

I 

[00:11:17] David Keith: wonder if there's an interesting analogy to the, the debate about, uh, uh, import tariffs in the U. S. So the left likes to see the businesses taxed, you know, tax the polluters. And of course, uh, Anybody who knows any econ and need any sensible regular person has to understand that if you tax the, the industries, they'll pass the taxes on.

If you're taxing industry that, you know, that is relatively inflexible demand, you know, for air traffic or electricity or whatever, you put carbon price on the industry. It's not really fair. Functionally that different from putting carbon prices on consumers because consumers end up paying but somehow it appears Politically utterly different because you're not taxing the industry and the same way Trump is kind of at least with some of his acolytes many of them clearly Got away with advocating these huge tariffs because tariff on China somehow feels different than a tax on Americans even though There's really no difference.

I mean, the Chinese tariff is the American government putting a price on things that you buy from China at Walmart. It's really a tax, but it somehow doesn't sound that way. 

[00:12:24] Stephen Carter: Yeah, the population loves to be fooled, right? The population loves magicians, right? When we're watching magicians, everything gets exciting because, oh, we don't understand the sleight of hand.

And we'll watch it over and over and over again. Well, politicians sometimes need to be magicians. Trump is an expert at it. Trump is, you know, will blame someone else for the mistakes that he's making. And then, and people will lovingly follow that misdirect. Um, this is the misdirect of climate change, right?

Right now we are. We're all responsible for producing CO2. We should all pay the price of CO2, but you know, where do we, we, we can change the way that we do that. And it will look like I'm not paying the price of CO2 anymore. If we went to a project to a producer model, people would be thrilled overnight, even though the cost would be.

Probably be higher because they're not just going to pass on the cost. They're going to pass pass on the cost with a profitability model. 

[00:13:19] Ed Whittingham: So Stephen, I'd love to go back to your political past when you ran Allison Redford's campaign, both the leadership campaign, and by the way, more, you know, Ed beating Stephen Carter at the BAM Center stories.

When I remember sitting in, it was the Eric Harvey theater then, in the audience watching at the Alberta Teachers Association leadership debate. And I hadn't, I didn't know Alison Redford from Eve at that point and came in and watched that. And I remember walking out and saying, Hey, she's pretty good.

Like I can see why you, why you picked up her campaign. And then, yeah, I'm not, not sure she's Eve, but 

[00:13:54] David Keith: well, I 

[00:13:57] Ed Whittingham: will say I remember after the whole debacle and, and the sky palace and you know, her own jet to Johannesburg for the Nelson Mandela funeral, all that scandal hit. I got together with her after the fact, and I remember her telling me in a very frank way, I was not cut out to be premier.

And I thought that was such an honest, candid thing to say. But then, Stephen, so on the eve of, I think it was the spring 2020 12 provincial election, you had already stepped away to run the campaign. And I remember, because I had to pick up the bill at Buchanan's when we went for a nice expensive lunch, Because you weren't getting employed.

You weren't, uh, you didn't have a paycheck anymore. We talked about, you know, the dossier of things that you would have on the wild rose party. And I knew it was full. And of course, one of the things in that election was infamously, and my old colleague, Dan Vinalovitch, it was his dad who asked Danielle Smith and the CBC audience, is climate change real?

And equivocate, she equivocated in her answer. So tell me going back, and this is a time when Alberta had. an industrial carbon price and had had an industrial carbon price going back to 08 with the Stelmac government. So in that election, how did you deal with climate? And like, did you even talk about this industrial carbon price at the time?

[00:15:15] Stephen Carter: We weren't interested in pricing at the time. What we were far more interested in is, is it real and is it human cost? And there were Definitively two different sides of that question. There was a relatively small subsection, uh, say around 30, 40 percent that believe that climate change wasn't even real in 2011, 2012, but there was a much larger group that you could tackle that was kind of left and center that, uh, you know, kind of a, a more pragmatic audience that says, yeah, you know what?

This looks like it's real, and it looks like we caused it. We were catching up with the rest of the country. Uh, the rest of the country was in the 60th, 70th percentile on is climate change real? We were still, you know, languishing behind. So, we, we chose the climate change is real side because we, you know, like science.

And, we also had a little bit more on Danielle. You know, we also knew that Danielle didn't even accept evolutionary principles. You know, we were just using climate change as a, uh, the beginning of a wedge. Uh, and then we, of course, where everything was all overtaken when she wound up with the lake of fire problem, which was, you know, anti LGBTQ that gave us a tremendous advantage.

We didn't have to keep pushing on the, uh, you know, the climate change and evolution concepts. But I'd love someone to stand up and ask her the question today if she still thinks that evolution has some holes. It was, it's a big question. It's, you know, what do you think, David? Probably not a big evolution guy, I'm assuming.

Yeah, 

[00:16:42] David Keith: you have to just, Just shake your head and cry about the way that, not just in Alberta, but Western democracies seem to just lose track of the difference between stuff that people just know unequivocally from things that are genuinely uncertain. I mean, climate change, just the fact that it's warmed over the last century, it's is, yeah, more or less as certain a scientific fact as is gravity.

The idea that there's, I mean, of course, I know you're right, but the idea that there's a substantial fraction of people who deny that really shows the way there's just a willingness to deny kind of really basic factual things and inability to distinguish things for which there's legitimate debate. For example, I think there's completely legitimate debate about what we ought to do about climate change, about how big a problem it really holds for human societies, about what the winners and losers are.

And those are legitimate questions. But the question of whether or not it's there is, is, you know, like a debate about whether there's trees. 

[00:17:41] Ed Whittingham: Yeah. And people have dismissed the overwhelming scientific evidence revolution. You pretty dismiss all science to do with biology and write down a molecular biology.

But so I do want to. We could have an interesting sidebar just on that on conspiracy theorist lunacy and David's got lots of stories to tell there. But let's, so let's go on to our second segment, our second segment, uh, the U. S. and I want to say about the U. S. and to echo what David said earlier on, is there anything more to say apart from that climate is not really a factor in the U.

S. election right now? 

[00:18:15] Stephen Carter: Well, I remember, uh, in the last U. S. election, um, a number of my friends down in the U. S. were working with, um, PACs, climate based PACs, right, where they were actually putting climate first in, in, in their communications in trying to change the way that the electoral, the outcome went, whether it was at the presidential level, gubernatorial level, or, or Congress.

And uh, those folks aren't working for PACs this year. Right. They're, they're still working for PACs, but they're not working for environmental PACs. Uh, instead they're working for, uh, different groups that are reflecting the needs of today. Abortion, uh, immigration, other issues that they're pushing forward.

Uh, and cause climate change, just it, it's just not there in the same way. Uh, climate change is a. You know, it's, it's almost like, okay, we've accepted that it's real. That's what was asked of us. And now we're not going to do anything about it, but we're going to accept that it's real. Now the, the, the Biden government has done something about it, but the way that it was sold was that they did a big infrastructure bill, right?

That's the way they, they had to package it in something else in order to slide through your medicine. It was the equivalent of putting an aspirin in a gummy bear. 

[00:19:23] David Keith: So the Infrastructure, the Infrastructure Act, the IRA, which is really the spend a lot of money on climate act. I think the big news in this election is that it's not being seriously attacked.

I think it's interesting to think about why, because it's huge. And I think part of the reason is we see from fact, I think fact does sometimes influence policy, that a lot of the actual money from the IRA, is going to Republican red states. And while regular voters in those states may have no idea that their jobs and growth in their community has been partly tied to the spending on, uh, you know, wind and solar and various other projects, I think their leaders do.

I think the elites in those Republican states know it and they do shape what happens. And I think one of the really important things that's happening in climate in this election is it's not a top issue, but it's also not being attacked. And I feel like even in a world where Trump wins and the Republicans take the House and Senate, there'll be some changes, but I don't think we lose the core of that climate action.

And I got to pile on here. You were sort of saying we've The minimum is just, we've accepted there's a problem. I mean, the actual pace of climate action actually in both countries is measured by the flow of money into clean energy is stunningly high. And it's not just the IRA. So there's a way in which this whole debate is different than it was, you a decade ago because there's really substantial money going into decarbonization and carbon emissions are coming down.

[00:20:49] Stephen Carter: Yeah, but you, there's a mix there between the hyper engaged, uh, the hyper engaged people who are now able to make money because it is a profitable industry versus the, the, the less engaged voting population. You know, when you're hyper engaged and you've realized, Hey, I can make, I can make myself a hundred million dollars or so doing this stuff versus The, the less engaged people who are just walking around trying to figure out how, you know, how to tie their shoelaces in the morning, um, you know, let alone worrying about what, you know, what the, what the, uh, the, the climate is doing.

There's, there's a difference because of the, the incentive structure, right. There's now significant incentive to doing these works. 

[00:21:27] Ed Whittingham: Yeah. And I'll, I'll jump in on that. So David, I completely agree that IRA part of its political Resilience is because there are pork barrel benefits in as many, if not more red states as there are in the blue states, but part those benefits include a lot of inefficient subsidies for biofuels, which gets back to the conversation we're having with.

Climate scientist Andrew Weaver, you know, in order to make things sticky, sometimes you have to do things that really aren't going to budge the needle on climate at all, but they're just going to help to keep an electorate on board. 

[00:22:03] David Keith: For sure, a lot of nonsense is happening, but I think A lot of sensible stuff is happening.

So in the U S that really is as rapid build out of, of, of solar and wind capacity, there's the beginning of pathways to really build out the grid and the heck there's now two or three serious efforts to restart mothball nuclear power that will put a couple gigawatts of clean power back on the grid.

These are really things that just weren't happening 10 years ago. So. I do think it's different. It says that the real action and we don't look at our, ours is very important, but these things flow down to all the public utility commissions, all the way the FERC, the federal energy regulator works, that means this stuff is really happening.

And I don't want to make it sound like it's all good, but it's happening in a way that I think is important. It isn't just a level of elites who made a hundred million dollars. I think regular people see electric vehicles happening, whether they own one or not. They know they're there. They have an opinion about them.

They're in the news. They see solar installations. So I think it's just tangibly different than it was. 

[00:23:04] Ed Whittingham: Stephen, I want to go back because I'm glad you mentioned abortion. And obviously it's topical in light of What happened with the Supreme Court and overturning Roe versus Wade, but I think I read this great book and it was in the 90s called Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood by an author named Kristen Luker.

And it talked about some of the, the, the ground game work that was done to make abortion a reoccurring issue from election cycle to election cycle, even though most Americans. Now, obviously, Americans have been brought back in because of this overturning of Roe versus Wade. The ground game was, frankly, working with Republican, registered Republican, and in this case, women who weren't working.

They were what we would call trad wives, I guess. 

[00:23:52] David Keith: I gotta break in and proudly say I'm married to a trad wife because she trad climbs. 

[00:23:57] Ed Whittingham: I can't wait to talk to Kirsten about that label. 

[00:24:00] Stephen Carter: Yeah, I think that's going to go poorly for you, David. I'm not an expert. 

[00:24:03] Ed Whittingham: Yeah, that's going to be an addendum to this podcast.

Um, but sorry, Stephen, my, my brilliant question was looking at the parallels, have climate activists failed to do that to, you know, kind of make it a ground game issues so that it doesn't Oscillate or go up, go down from election to election that it's a constant just the way that abortion has been a constant in the U.

S. 

[00:24:27] Stephen Carter: So you can't look at abortion and you can't look at gay rights, you can't look at a number of these things without looking at religiosity. And religiosity is one of the, uh, One of the great definers of, of partisanship as well, especially in the United States, but it has significant impact even here in Canada.

The problem with climate is that it doesn't, I mean, there are some with a religious, religious type fervor. Let's be, you know, there are some climate activists who are, who are nearly religious about their, their commitment to it, but generally speaking, there is no church of climate, uh, and because there's no church of climate, that religiosity, that, that, that.

push that is put forward that you get when the, when the pastor takes the, stands at the pulpit and tells you that you're going to burn in hell if you don't call your congressman. Um, that is, that's lost, uh, in the climate debate, but it's not lost in things like the LGBTQ movement. I mean, we're going to probably in the, in the future, see a backsliding on LGBTQ issues, uh, the same way that we've seen a backsliding.

Trans is just, for example, the, the, the thin edge of the, of the wedge. On, on, on LGBTQ issues. We're just, we're watching trans get used. And then as soon as we get a wedge in on trans, watch for a bigger wedge to come in, in the same way that we see that with abortion and guns, guns have also taken on the same religious fervor.

You know, we don't have a we don't have that kind of religious fervor period in Canada. That's just lovely. Um, we're quite lucky in that regard, but without religious fervor on the on the climate side, I just don't think you're going to have that ability to keep throwing these things in. We we will.

Periodically muster the strength to bring it forward, but we're not going to have that year to year election to election ability to sustain, um, significant climate pressure. It's just not, it doesn't have that religious fervor. 

[00:26:21] Ed Whittingham: Well, I, I'll question you on religious fervor and guns in Canada because today is my daughter's 18th birthday.

On Monday, she leaves for a 10 month sort of round the world, big gap year trip, tremendously excited. On her birthday, I asked, what does she want to do? She wants to go to the gun range and fire guns. So there's that religious fervor in my 18 year old daughter, and I'm going to fan those flames today. 

[00:26:44] Stephen Carter: No, but there's, I mean, there's just questionable parenting.

Well, 

[00:26:47] Ed Whittingham: there's, there's that too. There's that too. Okay. Where do I go from that? Now I'm feeling some really insecure and wondering, should I be 

taking 

[00:26:55] Stephen Carter: my daughter to the gun range on her birthday? You can do whatever you want. It's fun. It's fun to shoot guns at a gun range. Not at each other. It's, you know, I think, I think that's a significant difference.

[00:27:04] David Keith: Yeah. I think there's an interesting political lesson you can learn from the gun story. So, liberals in the U. S. like to complain that, of course, it's true by polling that most people in the U. S. would like to have stronger gun laws. But while they would like to have them, it's not ranked very high on their list of what they like.

Whereas you have some smaller group, maybe 30 percent, who think that gun rights and gun freedom are the most important thing. Yeah. And, you know, the kind of liberal view on that topic is this is democracy gone wrong, but I don't think it necessarily is. I think the reality in democracies is that what often matters is a small group, doesn't even mean majority, who puts a topic consistently number one, and that has a big role in policy.

It's more important, perhaps, to have 30 percent of some of the population who has a topic as number one than to have 80 percent of the topic who you know, the population who cares about a topic but it's, you know, number 26. And I think that that's something that is reflected in the difference between, you know, thinking about the kind of guns and climate analogy.

So the reason the U. S. doesn't have stronger gun laws is they're just this body of people who really care about it, and the rest of us don't care that much the other way. And I think in climate, What we need to have more sustainable climate action is a, not to have 70 percent of people say, yeah, climate's important.

I'd certainly like to see something happen, but when they really think about trade offs, it won't have much happen. I think what we need is to have, say, 30 percent of people who really see it as a crucial voting issue, where if they don't see action, they won't vote. 

[00:28:32] Ed Whittingham: Yeah, and the fact that climate is number six as a top concern.

Sorry, which poll? Was that Steven? 

[00:28:39] Stephen Carter: It's Abacus data. Okay. Yeah, Abacus is a, you know, well, well respected pollster. 

[00:28:45] Ed Whittingham: For sure, for sure. It's number six. I remember during our pre chat yesterday, David and I were both surprised actually that it was that high, but now for our third segment, our third segment pivoting to the uh, Canadian federal scene, climate was a top three or top five issue back in 2019 and 2021, I think.

And since then, you know, we've had the rise of pure polyev. Uh, who is the vast odds on favorite to be our next prime minister, I would mention John Rustad in B. C., who is an old school climate denialist, and we've got a very beaten Justin Trudeau in the Liberal Party of Canada, and seemingly a leader. Uh, a prime minister who doesn't want to resign as leader.

Is there, is there some kind of grand move that he can make to use climate to his advantage whenever the next federal election is? And I want to qualify. He's not going to win. The liberal party is not going to win. I think the liberal party could be headed by Jesus Christ himself and then still be Beaten by, you know, 15 points or so, but they may not lose as badly.

Is there something that he can do that will then help to stem, you know, the bleeding when they actually have the next election? 

[00:29:59] Stephen Carter: Well, I mean, I think that you need to move to something where it appears that you're gonna screw someone else and make me happy. Um, one of the things I would move to is a polluter pay model without a revenue.

Uh. Without a revenue redistribution, I'd move to a polluter pay model. And then I take all of that money and pay for all kinds of different goodies. You know, they can be climate related goodies or they can be unrelated goodies, but you got to move to, if you want to have anything vaguely resembling a successful climate policy right now, you have to have a good guy.

Me, I'm a good guy and you have to have a bad guy, that guy, that guy over there has to be the bad guy. And, and if you don't white hat and black hat this, you're never going to succeed on, on Paul, uh, on this policy. The problem with the front facing climate tax, carbon tax is that as soon as you put it on it, I'm the bad guy.

I have to wear the black hat. And in politics, that doesn't work as well. So I think that what we need to see is flip the switch. He has enough time to do this. Uh, even if the first step is just to end the, the, the forward, the front facing carbon tax and move it instead to a series of regulations that will ultimately generate a, uh, polluter pay model.

And then I would just so quickly remove that revenue neutral thing. People's heads would spin. 

[00:31:15] David Keith: It strikes me that part of Trudeau's challenge is it. does appear to lots of Canadians that he does kind of think he's Jesus Christ. And that attitude, I think, is part of the problem and reason he's not successful.

So maybe coupling those two things, are you saying, Steve, that if he actually really backed down for the consumer price and kind of owned it, like said it was a mistake, which is not a word that you expect much from Trudeau or Jesus Christ, that that actually would help to kind of anchor and turn things around if they then.

Turn it around to have a good guy and a bad guy, as you 

[00:31:50] Stephen Carter: say. So in, in politics, we often recommend the double down when you make a mistake, double down on it. Just do not, do not ever admit that you made a mistake. We're now at the, what, uh, the, the quadruple double down, like the, you know, like we, we've reached exponential levels of doubling down on this tax and it's not working.

Uh, people are not going to remember the clear If the climate rebate, I think there's a large group of the population that doesn't notice it, and a large group of the pop and a smaller group of the population for whom it actually matters. And that's a real problem. The the if and if the election becomes a carbon tax election versus, uh, a climate change election.

A climate change election is winnable. A carbon tax election is not. And Ed, I, I disagree a little bit on, on how people's minds can change. And, and, you know, there is a pathway to a different government that isn't Pierre Polyave led, but that pathway lead, you know, either goes through such a significant change from, by, by Trudeau that no one recognizes him, I mean, his self, his commitment to himself is, is notable.

Um, and I guess it's probably because he hasn't surrounded himself with anybody who says the word. No, sir. You know, like, I'm sorry, sir. No, you know, it looks like when Jeremy Brodhurst left, he had said, No, I don't think we can win this. And, uh, Jeremy's out on the street looking for a gig. Maybe, maybe we can have him on the podcast next time, you know?

[00:33:13] Ed Whittingham: Yeah, he's got the longest serving chief of staff to a prime minister by country mile and Katie Telford. Um, no. So one. One idea, and hear me out on this, because getting rid of the consumer facing carbon tax, I get it, I've had chats, including with leadership candidate Raki Pancholi, before she, uh, folded her tent and then threw her chips in with Naheed Banshee, which ended up going very wisely, so, um, you said you can, you can get rid of it, and you can replace it.

However, we're getting rid of it just at a time when the price is starting to tick up. Uh, at a level that behavioral economists will tell us it will change behavior. And if you get rid of it, you blow a big hole. Here's one idea. If, if you're to keep it in place, just as it's starting to actually work, and then you say, okay, well, in return, I'm going to drop the GST.

What about a grand move like that? I 

[00:34:04] Stephen Carter: mean, you could do something like that. That's an interesting one, but the, the economics of that are totally disproportionate. Right. The, the amount that you're making on the carbon tax is disproportionate to the amount that you're getting from your GST. So I think you could probably draw, and this is off, you know, me, you know, looking at the numbers in my head, so I could be way off, but I think you could drop the GST, maybe two points on the carbon tax revenue.

And then you'd have to draw and you have to do away with the, the revenue neutral side. I don't think you're going to get any pickup on a two point drop on the GST. 

[00:34:34] David Keith: Like Ed, I argued for the carbon tax. I was part of the kind of a circle of advisors who put it on the map and have all these arguments that, you know, we, income taxes are taxed to discourage employment and a carbon tax is a tax to discourage emissions and we should tax shift and we should get out of the crony capitalism, picking winners and just let the market do what I have.

We have this whole set of phrases that I do think are actually wise, but I buy what you're saying that at this point. Okay. Uh, as much as I think Ed might be rationally correct, it feels like the only way the Trudeau government saves this is to step away from the consumer tax, which after all is only one of several things they have, and step away from it sharply by just admitting that we're wrong.

[00:35:15] Stephen Carter: I don't think there's anybody in that government who's prepared to stand up right now and say that. I mean, I know that they're looking for a new national campaign director. And if the person who takes that job needs to be in a position to say, I need something. that is going to shake this election so dramatically that we can put ourselves on the map again.

I'm not sure that there's anybody in the government who's prepared to, to shake the tree hard enough to actually, uh, get the fruit. 

[00:35:40] Ed Whittingham: So climate is back to being a partisan issue. And I think, yeah, I was in Ottawa in June. I went to the launch of that, that, uh, biography of Trudeau called The Prince. At that launch, I bumped into Aaron O'Toole and we were kind of, Talking and commiserating.

He released a climate plan on the eve of the 2020 election when he was leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. And the climate plan was actually decent. And I remember going on CBC and saying, Okay, well things like consumer facing carbon tax, it's now Post partisan. He had a weird one. It was the more you burn, the more you earn.

It didn't really work, but it was there. He had other like a national low carbon fuel standard. He had a national zev mandate. And I thought, really? Okay, we've got conservative. It's champion. It's post partisan. Uh, we've broken down the oppositional politics. It's not a left right divide issue anymore. And then fast forward to today and looking at the politics, it very much is back to being a highly partisan issue in the U.

S. and in Canada. How have we failed to remove the oppositional politics from climate? 

[00:36:46] Stephen Carter: Well, because ultimately the electorate is selfish, right? And the selfishness of the electorate has to be factored into politics. Like, I think that Ernautil is a principled man who understands that issues are real and they need to, you know, he needs to deal with them.

I'm not sure that Pierre Poliev deals with things that way. I think that Pierre Poliev looks for the giant wedges and he sees the selfishness of the population and he's prepared to pick up on it and say, if the people don't want to pay this tax, I don't really care. what the consequences are. I'm going to put in, I don't care what the consequences are for defunding the CBC.

I don't care what the consequences are for taking away the carbon tax. I'm going to do these things regardless of the, uh, of the outcome because the selfishness of the electorate tells me that that's where I have to go and to break through to actually get heard by the electorate, an electorate that, um, barely pays attention.

You know, I, I call it the give a fuck factor. It's, it's super low on climate. So why wouldn't you, because there's no cost, there's no consequence. And the, the, you mentioned right off the top, where are the NGOs? I mean, there were campaigns, there was money being spent. There was, there were real initiatives underway in the late, uh, 2010s and then to the early 2020s.

Um, and they're gone now. Right. And so what, what is it that we're trying to achieve and, and who do we think is going to achieve it for us? 

[00:38:10] David Keith: Stephen's answer, your answer seemed to be selfishness. And that's sort of the answer for why it's so partisan now. And that feels true. I mean, people are selfish, not disagreeing, but it doesn't feel sufficient because, uh, the UK, uh, is similar to Canada in lots of ways.

And yet it's clear that climate. isn't so partisan there. Uh, and I don't think the explanation to people in the UK are inherently less selfish. I'm, as a Canadian, not willing to say that. I want to assume the underlying selfishness is about the same. And yet it really feels like the way it's played out has been different.

So I guess I want to hear a little more, not disputing that people are selfish, but that's not the whole explanation. 

[00:38:49] Stephen Carter: No, but I think that I did, I did overlay a significant difference in that significant difference. It would be the same to me, um, if, if, Boris Johnson was running again, the individual who chooses to lead up the other side with Pierre Polyaev.

Pierre Polyaev is possibly one of the most wicked politicians I've ever seen, and wicked in a couple of different contexts. Uh, he literally doesn't care. Right. He is only interested in achieving power. He's a lifelong political operative that started, you know, I've been working in and around Pierre Paglia for 25 years.

You know, this guy's been around politics, uh, and he has been a detrimental, uh, detrimental force in politics in every one of those 25 years. He is. Absolutely willing to sell his soul in order to achieve power. And I think that that might be, and I'm not close enough to the political leaders in, in the, uh, the UK, but I suspect that there is a difference in the individual and the individual who chooses to, to sell us a bad, I mean, I, I think that Danielle Smith falls into this category in Alberta.

Uh, John Rustad, I think falls into the category where there are certain political leaders that are willing to, uh, reflect back to us our very worst. And there are others. Uh, who are not willing to reflect back are, are very worst and I would put Aaron O'Toole into that category. 

[00:40:08] Ed Whittingham: Yeah, it's, it's a good point.

So I would say that, sir, Jason Kenney was no like climate devotee, but I can't imagine for a second that Jason government, that Jason Kenney government putting in place. The moratorium on new renewable electricity development that Danielle Smith put in place and from talking to a former top renewables executive just earlier this week, it is still gutted the industry and capital is just flown outside the province going back to this kind of.

Compare and contrast with the UK and Canada. So David, it's, it's a good point. There didn't seem to me to be a lot of daylight between Sunak on climate in the last election. I think it was more a matter of nuance than anything. But when David Cameron took over from Gordon Brown, I didn't see a huge difference.

And in climate policy, and I still saw the British High Commission willing to now to a lesser degree, but still willing to flex its diplomatic muscles on climate policy, even here in Canada, to the point where it's being accused of being interventionist. So you had a leader like that and terrible conservative leaders, but none of them ran on a on a platform of we're not going to do this.

It's a waste of money. Climate isn't an issue. And yet we have that here in Canada. So I guess. What do we need to do in Canada so that we can sort of borrow from the UK and make climate a post-partisan issue? 

[00:41:37] Stephen Carter: Well, I think that one of the things that I remember, I, I worked with a gentleman who'd been in oil and gas in, uh, in London and then had been in oil and gas in Calgary.

And the difference that he said is that, you know, we have these population bases in Calgary where the oil and gas industry becomes, you know, is. Significant percentage of the industry becomes dominant, right? And because it becomes dominant, it, it gets too much power. And I think that in, in Canada, the oil and gas industry, he just has too much power and that power is exerted in multiple ways.

And, uh, you know, when the big guys are exerting their power, they're exerting their power and kind of a climate climate model that, that is achievable. What, but here in Canada, we had the little guys step up. You know, the little guys took over when they elected and they put themselves behind Pierre Poldiev and they put themselves behind Danielle Smith and they put themselves behind John Rustad.

And these little guys that scrape and claw just to succeed, just to survive, um, they are. 100 percent climate denialists, and they are electing people who reflect that view. The United, the United Kingdom, you know, I remember my buddy saying, you know, it was like 1 percent of the economy. It was just another industry in, in a large, in a large country.

And it doesn't have that same kind of, of, of ability to push an agenda. And we have an industry that pushes an agenda here in Canada, especially in Alberta. We are a significant player in the economy of Canada and we are willing to flex our muscle, uh, and, and it impacts Canada. 

[00:43:12] David Keith: Economic self interest is profoundly explanatory here.

I mean, Alberta is almost a barrel a day per capita and not many other places in the entire world have that. oil dependent economically. And so of course it's different. And I think the combination of that having one province and also having provinces be relatively more powerful than there's no kind of UK equivalent.

So that plus the barrel per day per capita in Alberta is a big part of the explanation. I want to offer another explanation I think also is relevant, which is maybe, uh, political topics are more stable in democracies when the compromises kind of happen from the surprising side. So Nixon going to China and recognizing the communist state, Bill Clinton, reducing a bunch of old fashioned welfare or George Bush decommissioning nuclear weapons, intermediate range nuclear weapons in Europe.

Those are all things where there was sort of a political pill that the elites knew had to be swallowed, but the, the leader that swallowed it was from kind of the unexpected side. And I think in the UK, a bunch of climate policy happened. under conservatives, and I think that made it more conservative.

And that says there is no fix in Canada except a time machine where you go back to imagine some Canadian world with a moderate conservative who has some climate policies, and then that would be more stable, but we can't go back. 

[00:44:30] Stephen Carter: Yeah, moderation is a great word too, David. We haven't seen a lot of moderation in Canada since Aaron O'Toole.

And, uh, that exists across the provinces as well as, I mean, Doug Ford might be the last progressive conservative, uh, premier and it's Doug Ford. You know, like we're not looking at a guy who's necessarily at the top of his game, you know, the top of the game. 

[00:44:53] Ed Whittingham: Yeah, we can't say too many nice things about Doug Ford.

'cause I'll get heated emails from my mom, Steven. So we gotta be careful. So those are great points. Comparing and contrasting between Canada, the uk, or Alberta in the uk. I remember talking to the guy who was heading Totals Canada Wing total, the big oil and gas, French oil and gas major. Uh, and he was sharing stories just after he arrived in Alberta.

And he said he had worked in nine different countries up until that point. And he said in every country, even, you know, Sub Saharan African countries, South American countries, when you arrive, the kind of, you'll meet with a regulator early on and they'll say, well, you can't do this. You can't do that. If you do that, then we're going to shut you down, et cetera.

He said he came to Alberta and the bureaucrats and the regulators said, What can we do to help you? And then he said, he realized that it was captured and Alberta was truly captured by the oil and gas industry. 

[00:45:46] Stephen Carter: No, I mean, we, we are owned by them and we will continue to be owned by them as long as, uh, we rely on the, the revenue instead of, uh, paying our own way.

But that's a different topic for a different podcast. Uh, it is, it is a fascinating thing that, uh, you know, we choose to use these one time royalties to. finance our everyday operating expenditures. 

[00:46:09] Ed Whittingham: Well, we pivoted away from accolades to Doug Ford to, you know, more familiar ground and beating up on the oil and gas sector, Steven, thanks.

This is something we've wanted to do for a while. Really appreciate you carving out time. I really enjoyed the conversation, David. I was excited to get a little bit of that strategist 

[00:46:25] David Keith: fame. So thanks very much for joining. 

[00:46:28] Stephen Carter: This is a really interesting conversation and I wish that climate, uh, climate stays at the top of my priorities.

Uh, I wish it was at the top of more, more political operatives. 

[00:46:37] Ed Whittingham: Thanks for listening to Energy Versus Climate. The show is created by David Keith, Sarah Hastings Simon and me, Ed Whittingham, and produced by Emma Tandon with help from Crystal Hickey. And our title and show music is The Wind Up by Brian Lipps.

This season of Energy Versus Climate is produced with support from the University of Calgary's Office of the Vice President, Research, and the University's Global Research Initiative. Further support comes from the Trottier Family Foundation, the North Family Foundation, the Palmer Family Foundation, and our generous listeners.

Sign up for updates and exclusive webinar access at energyversusclimate. com, and review and rate us on your favorite podcast platform. This helps new listeners to find the show. Before Sarah went on leave, she and I were able to squeeze in a conversation about new research that Sarah had and her University of Calgary colleagues, Avi Freed and Blake Schaefer, conducted into EV owner behavior around level one and level two charging.

We'll drop that show next, followed by a special live taping of Energy versus Climate at the Energy Disruptors Conference in Calgary on October 1st. Keep an ear out for both of them.