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‘We had a good plan’

In a speech at Carleton, Stephane Dion reflects.

Dion understands that the fear people had of his carbon tax is what hurt him the most.

“We had a good plan, Canadians ended up being afraid of it. The conservatives came with attack adds against me … [Stephen Harper] invested a lot of money in this… People were convinced that [the carbon tax]… was a fiscal change, we did a poor job to explain that their income tax would be cut by 10 per cent,” he said. “Now people are stopping me in the street everywhere telling me that they thought it was a good plan.”

But Dion is still confident, comparing his situation to the first time women tried to get the right to vote. “It’s not because we have a ‘no’ the first time that we have to stop … I met the minister of the environment of Sweden and I asked her how come in your country whatever the government does, is much more than [what we do],  she told me it wasn’t the case at the beginning but it is the case now.”

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