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What the Liberals mean is that the cost of a carbon tax would be visible, while the cost of the alternatives would be invisible — which is to say that while the latter course would be more costly economically, it would be less costly politically. Perhaps that means it would be more likely to be implemented. But it does not follow that therefore it should be the one adopted.

We should be guided, rather, by two principles. First, there are costs to every alternative — including doing nothing. Second, we should, all else being equal, do the least costly thing — including doing nothing.

The costs of doing nothing are not, as sometimes suggested, the destruction of the planet. That might (or might not) be the cost if no country did anything, but as Canada contributes just 1.6 per cent of global emissions it is certainly not the cost of our own inaction: whatever we do or not do will make next to no difference to the planet.

The cost, rather, would be the international odium we would face as a free-rider on other countries’ efforts, and possibly whatever penalties we might suffer as a result.

Whatever action we take, then, should cost less than that. While that’s hard to assess, the lower the cost of any proposed course, the greater the likelihood of it passing the test. Which argues strongly in favour of Chong’s plan, or something like it. All other plans, except for Trost’s, are costlier, and no other plan, including Trost’s, gets us any closer to our targets.