The winner of the silly comment of the day..

…goes to none other then (surprise, surprise) John Baird, our Minister of the Environment, for issuing this statement this evening with regards to The National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy recommending quite strongly that a Carbon Tax be implemented:

As for a carbon tax, said Baird, “a new tax sounds like a Liberal idea to me.”

Reason #1 for it being a silly comment:

Both Prime Minister Harper and Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion have in the past rejected the notion of a carbon tax.

Reason #2: This Panel isn’t exactly full of hippies and tree-huggers issuing this statement:

The report was commissioned by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government in the autumn of 2006 to set a long-term path for cutting emissions between 60 and 70 per cent from 2006 levels by the year 2050…The Sierra Club of Canada lauded the report, calling it “tremendously significant” that the round table “with its predominantly business membership has concluded that carbon emissions pricing is essential for Canada to meet its targets.”

Reason #3: Look at the other folks who approve the carbon tax idea:

They join a chorus of the country’s top economists and major banking institutions who say the only way to alter Canada’s emissions is to change market behaviour with a tax.

Either Baird has the inside scoop that all those folks are Liberals, (and I presume Harper didn’t go out of his way to appoint too many on his advisory Panel) or more likely he doesn’t know what he’s talking about and decided to try a lame partisan attack. I thought the Conservatives couldn’t do any worse then Rona Ambrose, but John Baird has made me think otherwise.