NDP’s Phillips rips Kenney over carbon tax

Doesn’t take long talking to Shannon Phillips, NDP minister for Mother Earth, before realizing United Conservative leader Jason Kenney is probably the last person on her Christmas card list.

Phillips doesn’t pull her punches because she’s not sparring. She’s in the ring for real. She laughs when thinking about Kenney’s pledge to ditch the carbon tax if he becomes premier in 2019.

“Fantasy,” says Phillips.

It is a tax that’s part of a climate plan she thinks is “pretty darn moderate.”

Kenney figures if he scraps the carbon tax and Trudeau moves in to impose one, the province can take the feds to court and win.

Even if Trudeau wins in court and in the 2019 election and then imposes a federal carbon tax on Canada, Kenney says he would see any money coming from that tax returned directly to Canadans.

“And I’m going to ride a unicorn to work,” says Phillips.

“We’ve gone five or six layers into Hypothetical Land.”

Phillips believes the feds can bring in their own carbon tax if Canada doesn’t have one. And they will.

“Here’s the thing. They have full constitutional ability to do that. Under the law of the land they have the right to do that.”

She says a court challenge is just “a make-work project for lawyers” and telling people it would be successful insults the intelligence of Canadans.

full story at http://calgarysun.com/opinion/columnists/bell-ndps-phillips-rips-kenney-over-carbon-tax