It *is* important to recognize that a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade policy are the same thing in economic terms. You can cut through a lot of the political rhetoric in the debate between the two approaches with this point. You can bet that the left will go head-to-head on carbon tax vs. cap-and-trade during the debates and they'll be talking a lot about which one is better for the economy. Both approaches are a tax.

Economically equivalent? Yes. But obviously the devil is in the details and the approaches can differ substantially in terms of actual policy implementation.

Of course we should have done something about emissions like 35 years ago, but unfortunately climate change wasn't really on the political radar in Canada until Kyoto. It was only in the last federal election that the environment became a substantial issue. Maybe we can thank Al Gore, I don't know. I'm not saying that's the way it should have been, but that was the political reality. In any case, Jean Chrétien's and Paul Martin's majority governments had an opportunity to put a plan in place and they blew it.

You state in a big bold letters that cap-and-trade is equivalent to a carbon tax, but then you go on to explain a) how it's only economically equivalent (whatever *that* means) and then b) all sorts of other differences. It seems to me that your big bold lettered message isn't at all what you want Canadian voters to understand.

Also, in your second last sentence you say ".. in my opinion, we're already playing catch-up" when refering to our country dealing with greenhouse gas emisions. Let's be clear: we can stop playing it safe now with our language -- we certainly *are* playing catch-up now. It's not just your opinion or really a point worth debating now. We *are* in a big mess and the time to start fixing it was, you know, like, 35 years ago at least.