REMEMBER BREXIT? That time a Conservative Party directed widespread voter frustration at a single easy scapegoat, smothered the public with misinformation, and were rewarded with their biggest electoral victory in decades? Something similar is happening today in Canada.

The scapegoat this time is the “carbon tax.” That’s actually just one part of a complex carbon-pricing policy that imposes a fuel charge on consumers and industry alike while delivering a rebate directly to most Canadians. The principle is simple: raise the cost of something and people find ways to use less of it. But it’s also ripe for slander, because the fine print is so complicated: the amount you pay and are reimbursed depends on where you live, how much you make, how big your family is, and what you do for a living. Plus, while the government calls it “carbon pricing,” most people know it simply as a “tax.”

  • veee
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    8 months ago

    How about campaigning for better healthcare access and mandatory maximum hospital wait times? Maybe controlling grocery profitability? Housing developer profits?

    *checks notes*

    Ok, just mad about a rebate.

  • Rentlar
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    8 months ago

    If this is going to be a carbon tax election, we can get the wildfires, droughts and floods to campaign against Poilievre?

    • Avid Amoeba
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      8 months ago

      Given this and next year should be El Nino years, wildfire smoke across Canadian cities would be campaigning against him. Just picture a pipsqueak rally in a city under smog cloud.

      • pbjamm@beehaw.org
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        8 months ago

        Apparently PP supporters have short memories because that happened last summer.

        • Nik282000
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          8 months ago

          All they remember is Trudeau made them miss their vacation because they didn’t want to get a needle and now he is making it too expensive to drive their Ford 2500 Micropenis Edition.

      • orbitz
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        8 months ago

        Yet I imagine the Kelowna area will still vote for a Conservative to be our representative next election, so many people with money and other conservative types in the area. I was constantly checking updates as one of the fires were within like 1-2 km, it was very stressful and I wasn’t ever in an evacuation zone. Had everything ready just in case we had to go right away. Granted there was many buildings between me and the fire but it hit pretty fast, so I may have been overreacting but I’d rather be prepared than caught off guard. Will definitely vote for people that want to curb our environmental impact myself but feels like pissing in the wind when looking at vote counts after the election.

    • i_love_FFT@lemmy.ml
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      8 months ago

      They’ll blame individuals for lighting fires, and campaign for a water market for “efficient” water usage.

  • xmunk@sh.itjust.works
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    8 months ago

    Personally, I’d like a climate change election… possibly coupled with hospital wait times and chopping up monopolies.

    • ILikeBoobies
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      8 months ago

      Don’t insult Harper like that

      Harper had to reel him in for trying to fix elections

      • corsicanguppy
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        8 months ago

        Isn’t Harper the guy who signed away our sovereign mineral and resource rights to a hostile foreign entity?

        Is that why we wanted to rename a landfill the Steven Harper Dance and Supper club?

    • AnotherDirtyAnglo
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      8 months ago

      Alternately, greedy and short-sighted.

      There’s a metric fuckload of money to be made before the shit really hits the fan. What these shitheads don’t realize is that money won’t save them once you can’t breathe the air, drink the water, or grow the food.

  • AnotherDirtyAnglo
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    8 months ago

    Time to put voiceovers of Pierre chanting ‘axe the tax’ on video of homes burning to the ground, orange air, and terrified people driving down a road with forest fires raging on both sides.

  • Victor Villas
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    8 months ago

    I honestly would have let the Liberals get away with not implementing the Carbon Tax if bringing it in would become the turning point for Conservatives to win the next election. But it’s hard to really say this with any certainty, these morons would have found something else to latch on. Capital Gains, Immigration, CCP, fucking dental care even.