FAILURE OF TRUDEAU'S SOCIAL LICENCE

Nor is it politically possible to put a tax on carbon that’s high enough to do the trick.

That tax would have to rise to about $200 a tonne by 2030, Prof. Jaccard figures – and voters, he argues quite correctly, would never stand for it. (The highest carbon tax right now is $30, in B.C., and Christy Clark, the Premier, doesn’t dare to raise it further).

In a policy paper released last week, Prof. Jaccard argued that the only way to do it is by stealth – through a series of stringent (and admittedly inefficient) regulations that are too complex and too opaque for anyone but the experts to understand.