Good governance is often boring to watch from the outside. If things ever become entertaining, something has usually gone off the rails.
Boring is not the word I’d use to describe Bill C-234’s push to clear Parliament in the last few weeks.
On Dec. 7 and 8, drama around the bill had spilled back into the House of Commons. The Conservatives had purposefully pushed over 100 votes, and forced voting overnight and late into Dec. 8., in reaction to what they say was Liberal manipulation in the Senate to gut the carbon price exemption bill.
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“You will have no rest until the tax is gone,” Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre promised Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
That came after the Senate narrowly passed an amendment to remove barn and greenhouse heating from Bill C-234, leaving only exemptions for propane and natural gas used for grain drying. The bill has been greatly anticipated by the farm sector, but has run into roadblocks in the Senate.
Every appearance of Bill C-234 in the last few weeks has been worthy of reality TV, metaphorical slap fights and all. Accusations of bullying monopolized hours of the upper chamber’s sitting time.
On Nov. 21, Conservative ag shadow minister John Barlow protested the Liberal appointment and subsequent Bill C-234 vote by five new senators, accusing the Liberals of “playing games.”
“This critical bill earned all-party support in the House of Commons,” he said at the time.
The bill has also been haunted by enough zombie amendments that it should be on an episode of the Walking Dead. In late November, the chamber struck down a change that would have made it harder to extend the bill’s sunset clause, a measure reintroduced after being presented and tossed in committee.
The same day saw another amendment resurrected to remove barn heating from the bill, an idea that had already been voted down Nov. 7.
You could almost hear the collective facepalm from ag groups when, this time, the measure actually squeaked through with a vote of 40-39 in favour.
The sunset clause reared its head yet again Dec. 7. Another amendment, which would reduce the clause from eight years to three, was tabled. The senate later voted to adopt that amendment 44-40 on Dec. 11.
The bill lacked that edge of government-halting conflict earlier in the process.
While it wasn’t moving at the pace agriculture would have preferred earlier in the year, its first few appearances the Senate were relatively mild. The tone characterized the bill as a transitionary measure, removing a burden on farmers that they had little choice but to bear and no chance to push onto consumers, until new green technology could be developed. Several senators expressed that, while not happy with every aspect of the bill, they saw its necessity.
The sudden shift in tone makes it hard not to assign a lot of blame in the bill’s difficulties to party partisanship. The fight over Bill C-234 has become the latest proxy war over carbon price as a whole.
Carbon pricing roared back into the headlines this fall, after the federal government announced exemptions for home heating oil. The Conservatives took advantage of the perceived chink in carbon policy armour, pushing to do away with the whole system.
In October, Trudeau stated “there will absolutely not be any other carve-outs or suspensions of the price on pollution.”
It’s not unreasonable to suggest the Liberals were looking to avoid any further appearance of policy backsliding, particularly in the lead up to COP28, the United Nations Climate Change Conference that ended Dec. 12.
On the Conservative side, Bill C-234 makes convenient ground to launch a revitalized offensive against carbon pricing.
Most farmers support an end to carbon pricing, but there is danger in letting the conversation around a specific measure, like Bill C-234, spiral into general debate over the concept. In that moment, it becomes ground zero in a wrestling match for political capital.
It doesn’t matter how good an idea it is, parties see it as an issue where capitulation would mean losing key ground to the other side.
And, like all proxy wars, this one has far-reaching consequences for the people and livelihoods caught in the middle, long after the sponsoring superpowers have moved on to other things.
As one person put it in a recent conversation I had, “when politicians play stupid games, farmers win stupid prizes.”
Editor’s note: The amended bill cleared the Senate Dec. 12 and is headed back for another round in the House of Commons.
