That's a great question.
I won't spend much time defending theory, but I will say that the Ecofiscal Commission isn't lost in a theoretical world. Our reports are extremely practical and apply to ways to make pollution pricing—not just carbon pricing but pollution pricing—work in today's world in Canada in a very practical way. I think those reports actually do a very good job of it.
The B.C. carbon tax, as you note, sets the highest carbon price in Canada. It was designed to be—and for something like the first eight and a half years was—revenue-neutral. It was collecting roughly $1.2 billion in revenue every year, and $1.2 billion was returned in the form of business and personal income tax rebates, plus some low-income transfers. As you note, it no longer is revenue-neutral.
You're asking an economist to answer a question about how we make political choices. It was a political choice of Gordon Campbell's in 2007-08 to introduce a carbon tax that was revenue-neutral, and it was a political choice by the current government—