Trading or Taxing? Huh?

Tomorrow, the Canadians are off to the polls to elect a new national government. The Globe and Mail referred to the campaign as ‘ugly and occasionally brutish’ and, I might add, blissfully short.

All the Canadians I’ve recently talked to have described their national election as boring, in contrast to the U.S. campaign. We’ve not discussed the ugly and brutish part which the U.S. has surely shared, but Canadians seem to think the Canadian campaign wasn’t about much of anything. The people I meet have not seemed to be enthusiastic about Stephen Harper (the Conservative candidate and current Prime Minister with a minority government and likely to get another one when the counting is done tomorrow). On the other hand, they don’t demonstrate much enthusiasm for any of the other four parties, either, or at least not in any noticeable way.

The Liberals are the likely alternative, but there’s also the NDP (socialist, sort of—well, if ‘we’re all socialists now,' perhaps the NDP will do better than expected, thanks to the financial melt) and the Greens and the Separatists who have no constituency in B.C.

One of the most interesting things to me about the Canadian campaign is that the Liberals favor a carbon tax while the Conservatives are cap-and-trade supporters. This is all about global warming and refers to the Kyoto treaty, which Canada signed but the U.S. backed out of. And, as an issue, it's one that the Americans also ought to be concerned about: global warming means all of us, just like global financial meltdown meant all of us. However, I doubt if one in fifty Americans could tell you anything about either choice. And if the Canadians find this all that boring, maybe they’re no better informed than we are. Sobering thought.

Well, once we all finish mastering the intricacies of the financial system, we can move on to learning climatology, oceanography, planetary science generally, and ecology, of course. I can hardly wait.