Homes, women workers and mental health: three ways politics mattered this week
OTTAWA — Is it a price or is it a tax?
When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau inadvertently used the Conservatives’ favoured word “tax” to describe this week’s new measures on greenhouse gas emissions, the Opposition had a “gotcha” moment that delighted them for several days — even as they watched their long-standing resistance to putting a price/tax on carbon be crushed by the Liberal majority.
Semantics notwithstanding, the effects of the price/tax won’t be felt by most consumers for a few years yet, since most provinces already have some kind of carbon, um, regime.
But the week in federal politics will indeed have some more immediate, material effects on many Canadians — indebted home buyers, chronic house flippers, women in the workplace and perhaps those needing some help with mental health.