Could a carbon tax have political legs?

Back in May, I wrote about how a carbon tax won popular support in British Columbia:

TORONTO — Americans who couldn’t care less that British Columbia had an election last week are in good company — most Canadians living outside the west coast province feel the same way.

In fact, many Canadians would be hard pressed to name any premier — similar to the governor of a U.S. state — apart from their own. There are only 10 of them, but a vast geography and small population have made parochial regionalism a defining element of Canadian identity.

Yet provinces have been known to launch initiatives so attractive that the federal government eventually transforms them into national programs. The most famous example is medicare, Canada’s publicly financed health insurance for all residents, which emerged from a 1947 policy in Saskatchewan.

A policy with similar trailblazing potential was implemented in British Columbia last July, under Premier Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government. With the new policy, the province became the first jurisdiction in North America to fight global warming with a tax on carbon emissions. ...

For more on the carbon tax, click here.

http://www.globalpost.com/notebook/general/091117/could-carbon-tax-have-political-legs