I’m back in Toronto today after being in Halifax yesterday for the first policy conference in a series for the Green Party. It was a great experience, and the organizing team (Chris Alders et al) is to be commended.

The conference was on Ecological Tax Shifting and Environmental Economics, which is of course a key issue for us. As of yesterday morning, there were 150 people registered. An hour before lunch, Chris Alders counted over 170 people in the room.

Here’s the kicker: most of them — about 125 of the total — weren’t Green Party members. The conference was free to attend, and open to the public. How’s that for doing politics differently? This strategy had at least three major benefits:

1. It got the attendance of the conference up to a critical mass, giving it credibility and productivity.
2. It meant that ideas that most Greens would take for granted (for example, that unlimited economic growth can’t continue) were immediately challenged by people who didn’t have the same assumptions as the rest of us. This forced the group to recognize how our policies will be interpreted, and what we have to do to be convincing.
3. We weren’t only preaching to the choir. I’m confident that the majority of newcomers in attendance left with a more complete and positive understanding of what the Green Party stands for, and I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them take up memberships and get involved in the days to come.

Of course, this also meant that the conference didn’t make formal decisions or pass resolutions. That’s ok, that wasn’t the point. The point was to listen to a series of experts on the topic at hand, ask questions, and make policy recommendations to the leader (Elizabeth) and the Shadow Cabinet (to be announced this week) to further develop into a platform that’s consistent with existing policy.

For the meat and potatoes of what went down (from my humble perspective and note-taking skills), please follow the links below. These posts aren’t really “easy-reading,” but I thought it was important to document what happened at the conference for those who are interested in the details. For those who aren’t, you might wanna skip this stuff.

• Dr. Ron Colman – GPI Atlantic – Presentation on Genuine Progress
• Dr. Peter Victor – York University – Presentation on Economic Growth
• Amy Taylor – Pembina Institute – How Environmental Tax Shifting Works
• Andrew Van Iterson – Green Budget Coalition – Implementing Environmental Tax Shifting
• Paul Lansbergen – Forestry Products Association of Canada – Effect on Industry of Environmental Tax Shifting

See also:

• Recommendations from the conference to the leader and shadow cabinet.
• Closing statements from the five speakers.

Enjoy!

The following is one post in a series: “Reporting Back: Green Party of Canada Policy Conference, Halifax“

Dr. Ron Colman, founder and Executive Director of GPI Atlantic, began by placing Environmental Tax Shifting (ETS) in context. ETS, he explained, is a second step. The first step must be to assign real value to things like our environment and volunteerism, for example, that are currently not valued by our economic indicators at all. That’s a sobering place to begin, he said, because of course we should already be valuing these things. But we’re not.

On the flight to Halifax, I flipped through an issue of The Economist. The good news is that a large amount of the magazine was dedicated to the dangers of climate change (including, but not limited to economic dangers) and the need for action. Yet, there, at the back of the magazine, was the standard two-page spread of the GDP of countries around the world.

The GDP isn’t a problem in itself; the problem is how we use it. Increasingly, the GDP is assumed to be a measure of wellbeing (generally, how well things are going). That, despite warnings over sixty years ago by GDP architect Simon Kuznets, who said that’s exactly the sort of thing the GDP shouldn’t be used for.

In Economics 101, the economy is described as a perpetual motion machine, completely separate from other systems. Of course, the reality is that the economy is a sub-system of the biosphere, with both inputs and outputs. Conventional economics still ignores that, and, in the words of Colman, is therefore “being taught all wrong.”

There are some fun examples that demonstrate why we live in what Colman called a “distorted market economy.” The extreme example that I’ve used before is that if we cut down every tree in Canada, our GDP would skyrocket, yet of course that wouldn’t actually be good for the economy or anything else. A real-life example is the Exxon Valdez, which contributed more to the GDP of Alaska by spilling its oil (because of all the money spent on the clean-up) than if it had delivered its cargo.

Colman gave another example to illustrate the absurdity of not including volunteer work when measuring the size and value of an economy. If you hire a housekeeper, he explained, the GDP goes up. Marry your housekeeper, and the GDP goes down. That’s entirely false, since no actual expansion or contraction of the economy has taken place, just a transfer of work between the paid sector to the unpaid sector.

So, that’s the problem. The solution is a Genuine Progress Indicator, or GPI. The GPI tracks genuine progress by creating a set of new accounts that value human, social, and environmental resources. Only within the context of genuine progress, Colman argued, can we make any subsequent tax shifts “systemic” instead of “episodic.” In other words, once triple-bottom-line resources are accounted for, externalities are internalized, and prices reflect the true costs of production, the market will be more efficient, less wasteful, and require less government intervention.

“This room should be full of right-wingers,” observed Colman. “Market economists should love this stuff!”

The following is one post in a series: “Reporting Back: Green Party of Canada Policy Conference, Halifax“

Amy Taylor from the Pembina Institute presented on the details of how Environmental Tax Shifting should be implemented. The goal is to internalize costs, and can be accomplished in a number of ways, including regulation, trade permits, and environmental pricing, which includes subsidy removal, taxes, charges and user fees.

There are three kinds of ETS:

1. Broad. For example, a shift from income tax to consumption tax.
2. Sector Specific. This shift occurs within one industry, so that taxes are reinvested to make that industry more efficient and environmentally responsible.
3. Individual reform. For example, deposits on beer bottles.

The good news is, other countries have already tested this stuff out and shown that it works, so we don’t have to jump before we look. (Come to think of it, that’s also bad news, because it means we’re already behind.) For example, Germany increased a fossil fuels tax while decreasing employment insurance charges. Sweden gives efficiency rebates to those who purchase more energy efficient vehicles.

Taylor concluded with two lists. First, things we should conceder taxing (or taxing more): water consumption, municipal waste, green house gas emissions, motor vehicle pollution, deforestation. Second, taxes we could reduce: income, capital, property, payroll charges, sales taxes.