Mr. Speaker, the member will be surprised by who first proposed that there be a price on carbon.
Jon Harding of Imperial Oil said, “any climate policy should ensure the cost is applied evenly across the economy, maximize market mechanisms and minimize complexity and administrative costs”. Preston Manning of the Manning Foundation supports the idea of full-cost accounting. He said, “It's eventually got to come. It's just fairly basic concept that, with any production of energy, you've got to figure out what are the environmental impacts and then the cost of avoiding or mitigating them and then integrating that into the price of the product.” Jack Mintz, who the Conservative Party loves to quote, heads the University of Calgary's school of public policy. He said, “a carbon tax would allow Ottawa to cut subsidies to all forms of energy”, which the Harper government promised, “and allow the market to function.”
Which government, and it was not British Columbia, first imposed the carbon tax in March 2007?