Preston Manning—a real conservative?

As someone on the left I have occasionally wondered how we got lumbered with responsibility for defending the environment. Surely, I would muse, this is the province of conservatives. Conservative, conservationist—practically the same word. Shouldn't conservatives be those most concerned about conserving?

Well, as it turns out, at least one Canadian conservative is. Preston Manning, former leader of the Reform Party, has stated he wholeheartedly supports the idea "that for any economic activity, especially the production of energy, we should identify its negative environmental impacts, devise measures to avoid, mitigate or adapt to those impacts, and include the costs of those measures in the price of the product." In other words, he supports a carbon tax, although he hastens to add he wouldn't call it a tax.

Mr. Manning has been excoriated by some elements on the right who don't seem to know what conservatism is. Or was. Perhaps Mr. Manning is an old-fashioned conservative, relegated to the past by the modern conservatives exemplified by Prime Minister Stephen Harper who seems to believe that protecting nature should never get in the way of exploiting it.

Mr. Harper et al. are winning in the short term, but in the long run Mr. Manning's form of conservatism may very well triumph. Not only because such as he are wiser men but because, on the overwhelming issue of the day, they are right.