Trudeau says conservative premiers are lying about carbon pricing
Most premiers pushing federal government to halt scheduled carbon tax increase
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused conservative politicians across Canada, including premiers, of lying to Canadians about the carbon price.
Trudeau's government is buckling as attacks mount against carbon pricing, and voters increasingly side with politicians who say the policy is making their lives less affordable.
Most premiers and the federal Conservatives want the Liberals to cancel Monday's scheduled increase of the carbon price by $15 per tonne, adding 3.3 cents to a litre of gasoline and 2.9 cents to a cubic metre of natural gas.
The carbon rebates sent to households every three months are also being adjusted in parallel to the carbon price itself.
Political leaders who criticize the policy are failing to acknowledge and inform Canadians about those rebates, which are meant to offset costs to consumers, Trudeau said. Households that lower their fuel use save money, but their rebate amounts are unaffected.
"Conservative premiers across this country are misleading Canadians, are not telling the truth," he said.
"Eight out of 10 families across the country in federal backstop jurisdictions make more money with the Canada Carbon Rebate than it costs with the price on pollution."
The "backstop" is the federal pricing system, which applies in every jurisdiction that does not have an equivalent pricing system of its own. Currently, British Columbia, Quebec and Northwest Territories do that, while all other provinces and territories use the federal consumer levy.
Trudeau also accused Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of blocking legislation that would double the rebate top-up for rural Canadians.
His comments at a press conference in Vancouver came the day after he wrote to critical premiers suggesting they haven't come up with a viable alternative — but is all ears if they do.
They also came as Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe was pressing his case against the carbon price to a House of Commons committee, the first of three premiers who will do so this week.
Moe said he believes in climate change and that emissions need to go down. But he said pricing pollution is not the way to do it.
"The goal is not for the big polluters to pay, the goal is for them to emit less," he said, bristling a little during an exchange with New Democrat MP Alexandre Boulerice.
"How is it we shouldn't make big polluters pay?" Boulerice demanded, accusing Moe of believing that "giant vacuum cleaners" will suck emissions out of the sky to solve climate change.
Moe said Saskatchewan's industry and farmers have lowered their emissions and are displacing products overseas that have a higher carbon footprint.
"We are not climate laggards," Moe said.
He insisted the carbon price makes it harder for families and businesses to lower their emissions.
Sask. premier challenged by MPs
The antagonistic nature of the debate was on full display at the committee, which spent almost as much time arguing about whether Moe should have been there at all as it did hearing what he had to say.
Liberal, NDP and Bloc Québécois MPs accused the Conservatives, who chair the committee, of circumventing other members and inviting Moe to speak without any consultation.
MPs from the three parties, which all endorse carbon pricing, pushed Moe to explain what he would do to cut emissions.
Conservative chair Kelly McCauley said he invited Moe and other premiers because they had asked to speak to the finance committee, which has refused them.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs are both scheduled to appear at the committee Thursday.
Smith said Wednesday her province has a plan to be carbon-neutral by 2050 by cutting major industrial emissions. She pointed to a Canadian Climate Institute report last week that said the carbon price on heavy industry is doing more to cut emissions than the consumer levy.
The consumer levy is still expected to cut between 19 million and 22 million tonnes of emissions annually by 2030, which could amount to about 10 per cent of what Canada aims to cut over that same timeline.
Smith herself is under fire in Alberta for hiking the provincial gas tax five cents a litre on April 1, more than the 3.3 cents being added by the carbon price and without any accompanying rebate.
Smith defended the move, which reinstates a tax that had previously been slashed, as necessary to pay for roads.
A similar attack was launched against Higgs in New Brunswick after the province's utilities board approved nearly a 13 per cent hike to electricity bills as of April 1.
N.B. Liberal Leader Susan Holt called for an emergency debate in the provincial legislature about the hike.
"If Premier Higgs was focused on New Brunswickers instead of obsessing with Ottawa, he would be doing his part to make life more affordable for you," Holt said in a social media post.
Ontario Liberal MP Francis Drouin also challenged Moe on why, if he's so concerned about the cost of living, he hasn't cut provincial taxes.
Saskatchewan already exempts natural gas used for heat from provincial sales taxes.
NDP backs Conservative demand for 'emergency meeting' between PM and premiers on carbon pricing
Federal carbon price is not 'be-all, end-all' of climate policy, NDP environment critic says
The federal New Democrats backed Conservative calls Wednesday for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to take part in a televised "emergency meeting" on carbon pricing with Canada's premiers.
The federal carbon price is not the "be-all, end-all" of climate policy and New Democrats are open to alternative plans presented by premiers, NDP environment critic Laurel Collins said Wednesday.
Collins accused the Liberal government of using climate as a political wedge issue and said a meeting would help unite Canadians and spark new ideas.
"We need to bring Canadians together to fight the climate emergency, to tackle the cost of living crisis, and we need a government that will support them," Collins said.
The New Democrats backed a non-binding Conservative motion demanding that Trudeau sit down with provincial and territorial leaders within five weeks.
The motion passed Wednesday in the House of Commons with the support of both the New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois. Liberal MPs opposed it.
"Trudeau has a responsibility to listen to Canada's premiers about the misery his carbon tax is causing Canadians," the Conservative Party said in a media statement on Wednesday following the vote.
"In this meeting, he must also allow provinces to opt out of the federal carbon tax and pursue other responsible ideas for lowering emissions without taxes."
The Conservatives insist that the carbon price is making life less affordable for Canadians, while the Liberals insist their carbon price rebates mean most Canadians actually end up with more money at the end of the day.
Trudeau has so far spurned requests for a face-to-face meeting from six different premiers in Ontario, Western Canada and the Atlantic provinces.
Trudeau has said he believes premiers would rather complain and "make political hay" out of his federal carbon pricing program than present alternatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
PM says he doesn't 'understand' NDP's climate stance as Singh appears to shift on carbon tax
Trudeau claims NDP is pulling back both from affordability measures and the fight against climate change
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he sympathizes with NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh but no longer understands his party's position on climate change after Singh appeared to waver on his support for the consumer carbon tax.
"I feel for the NDP and for Jagmeet. This is a hard moment. There are political headwinds," Trudeau told reporters Friday at a press conference in Vaughan, Ont.
"There's a lot of political pressure. I'm certainly feeling it, everyone should be feeling it, by folks out there who are worried about affordability, who are worried about climate change."
Speaking at the Broadbent Institute's annual policy conference in Ottawa on Thursday, Singh said his party will put forward a climate policy that won't divide Canadians and accused Trudeau of using the climate crisis as a political wedge.
"It can't be done by letting working families bear the cost of climate change while big polluters make bigger and bigger profits," said Singh. "We all lose if we make Canadians choose between an affordable life and fighting the climate crisis."
After the speech, Singh told reporters he doesn't want the burden of fighting climate change to fall on working people — but he wouldn't say whether that means he wants to get rid of the consumer carbon tax.
In a statement issued to CBC News, Singh said the NDP has not changed its position on the consumer carbon price.
"What we have done is commit to building a climate plan to make big polluters pay, bring down costs for Canadians, meet our emissions targets and unify people in taking on the climate crisis. Despite being in power for nine years, the Liberal government has failed to do this," wrote Singh.
The prime minister suggested Friday morning that Conservative arguments against the consumer carbon tax are "resonating with the NDP."
"I don't entirely understand the position of the NDP in pulling back both from affordability measures and from the fight against climate change, but I can assure everyone that this government, my government, will continue to step up on the fight against climate change. We'll continue to put more money in families' pockets," Trudeau said.
The prime minister is referring to carbon tax rebates when he claims the NDP is pulling back from "affordability measures." The Liberal government insists that eight out of 10 families in jurisdictions where the federal carbon tax applies receive more money in federal rebates than they pay under the tax.
New
Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh speaks with reporters before
attending a committee meeting on Parliament Hill, Thursday, April 11,
2024 in Ottawa. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
Reacting to Singh's comments, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Thursday on social media the NDP leader was "jumping ship" on the carbon tax.
"Three weeks ago, Jagmeet Singh voted with his coalition partner Justin Trudeau to hike his costly carbon tax," Poilievre wrote. "He's desperately trying to run from his own record. But we won't let him forget, and we won't let him try to fool Canadians."
The Liberal government survived a non-confidence motion on the carbon tax in March with the backing of the Bloc Québécois and NDP.
"The Conservatives want to pretend the climate crisis isn't real. With threats of a record forest fire season looming, we can't afford the do-nothing approach of the Conservatives," Singh wrote in the statement to CBC News.
David Coletto, founder and CEO of polling firm Abacus Data, said he thinks Singh may be trying to differentiate New Democrats from Liberals in the minds of voters.
"I think the Conservatives are really eating into a lot of that NDP support. Most of those that have switched from the Liberals to Conservatives, and a sizeable number of former New Democrat supporters — those that voted NDP in 2021 — are going Conservative," Coletto said in an interview with CBC News.
"This might be a strategy to, on the one hand, signal that maybe they are still focused and care deeply about climate change but on the other hand they are very sensitive to people's concerns about the cost of living, and depart from what has become a signature policy issue of the Liberal government."
In the last three elections, the NDP has run on platforms that include a price on carbon.
The federal carbon price increased to $80 per tonne on April 1. That increase means drivers pay an extra 3.3 cents per litre at the pump.
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Climate warrior Jane Goodall isn't sold on carbon taxes and electric vehicles
'It's not something I endorse,' British primatologist says of carbon taxes
World-renowned primatologist and climate activist Jane Goodall says carbon pricing schemes like the one Canada has deployed aren't a silver bullet to solve the pressing threat of climate change.
Speaking to CBC News during the Ottawa stop of her cross-country tour of Canada this week, Goodall said the jury's out on whether levying a consumer price on emissions will meaningfully improve the climate picture over the long term.
Goodall, who just turned 90, said a carbon tax can seem punitive to consumers — making a measure to fight climate change seem like a costly chore.
She said she also worries that the fight against climate change has been "politicized ... causing people just not to listen"— and that's a problem because the urgency of the crisis demands an all-hands-on-deck response.
Industrial carbon taxes also rarely impose a huge financial burden on major energy companies, which can pay a levy and go on drilling and mining resources that are damaging to the environment, she said.
Anti-carbon
tax protesters wave signs and chant slogans as they block a westbound
lane of the Trans-Canada highway west of Calgary on Monday, April 1,
2024. (Jeff McIntosh/Canadian Press)
"The problem with a climate tax is that, yes, it can do some good — it gives money to control climate change and so on — but it doesn't get to the root cause, which is fossil fuel emissions, emissions of methane from industrial farming," she said. "So, in that sense, it's not something I endorse."
Goodall said carbon taxes are "not a bad thing at all" but "a big oil and gas company, they pay a tax and then they're making so much money they go on emitting and mining and so on. So it's not the solution."
She said a more effective measure would be to aggressively curtail fossil fuel extraction and their use in Canada and around the world.
"We need to curb it everywhere. I have great faith in young people — they're beginning to understand and they can affect their parents who may be in the oil business," Goodall said.
"Some of the more responsible oil and gas companies are investing more and more in renewable energy and that's the way to go — put more money into renewable energy so that we no longer need fossil fuels."
Canada has a dual carbon pricing system. The first part is a consumer-focused tax that makes the price of oil, natural gas and propane more expensive to encourage people to choose cleaner, greener alternatives.
The tax money is collected by Ottawa and then rebated to consumers through quarterly payments based on family size and location.
The idea is that the more a household moves away from fossil fuel consumption, the more it stands to gain from the federal government's rebate.
There's also a second industrial component, or "output-based pricing system," that targets large emitters with a separate price levied on their carbon pollution.
That program has faced criticism from some environmental groups who say the price is applied unevenly and allows some companies to emit large quantities of carbon for free.
But the industrial price is also said to be the more effective of the two taxes.
Is carbon pricing or a consumer tax more effective?
An independent analysis by the Canadian Climate Institute, released late last month, shows industrial carbon pricing has three times the impact on greenhouse gas emissions as the consumer tax.
The report found that carbon pricing — both the consumer and industrial versions — is projected to reduce emissions by as much as 50 per cent by 2030.
The Liberal government has made the carbon tax the centrepiece of its climate change plan.
The Conservatives under leader Pierre Poilievre, meanwhile, have been campaigning to scrap the tax and ramp up natural gas production to offset more emissions-intensive fuels like coal.
While she's somewhat sceptical of carbon taxes and emissions pricing schemes, Goodall said the world needs to collectively invest more in technology to help with the climate change fight.
"We have these amazing intellects. We're not using them enough and we're not thinking holistically enough," she said.
But she added she's worried about the current crop of electric vehicles, which largely rely on lithium batteries.
The
Green River, a tributary of the Colorado River, on Thursday, Jan. 25,
2024 in Green River, Utah. An Australian company and its U.S.
subsidiaries are eyeing a nearby area as a source of lithium, a metal
used in electric vehicle batteries. The company also has applied for
rights to fresh water from the Green River. (Brittany Peterson/AP Photo)
She welcomes EVs as a concept but said she fears that the global scramble to mine lithium is ruining parts of the natural environment.
"Huge areas are now being destroyed by mining for lithium," she said. "It scars the natural world."
Pointing to Serbia, where the prospect of lithium mining prompted anger from local activists, Goodall said there's a risk that the rush to exploit the world's lithium supply will damage the "pristine environment" and spark a backlash.
She also said the lithium mining and refining process requires "lots of water," which is "tough in places where there's not that much fresh water."
"To me, that's one of the big problems of electric vehicles," Goodall said. "Apparently there are other ways of sourcing batteries other than lithium and that needs to be developed."
An
industrial plant to produce lithium carbonate, used to manufacture
lithium batteries, after its opening ceremony in the Uyuni salt desert
on the outskirts of Llipi, Bolivia on Friday, Dec. 15, 2023. (Juan Karita/AP Photo)
Goodall was in Ottawa Wednesday to be feted by the Senate.
Progressive Saskatchewan Sen. Marty Klyne — who sponsored legislation named after Goodall to effectively ban keeping great apes and elephants in captivity in Canada — praised the British primatologist and conservationist for her "legendary discoveries" about chimpanzees and her ongoing work to protect nature and the environment.
Despite her advanced age, Goodall is on the road roughly 300 days a year, mostly meeting with young people to encourage them to stay committed to the climate fight despite what she calls a lot of "doom and gloom" disseminated by the media about the environment.
"Her message has never been more urgent when it comes to addressing the climate crisis, biodiversity and animal welfare," Klyne said.
Klyne's legislation built on a previous Senate bill to limit whale and dolphin captivity. It languished in Parliament for years before it was withdrawn.
The government has since introduced legislation of its own, S-15. If passed, it would prohibit the new ownership of elephants and great apes in Canada unless certain conditions are met — a measure Goodall enthusiastically supports.
In
this 2006 file photo, primatologist Jane Goodall sits near a window as a
chimpanzee eats in its enclosure at Sydney's Taronga Zoo. (Rick Rycroft/AP Photo)
Jane Goodall Institute Canada, the local branch of her worldwide charity, is focused on biodiversity loss — it has a program to rehabilitate orphaned chimpanzees in Africa, for example — but it's also active on the climate change file.
"The climate crisis is here. Forests are burning. Oceans are rising. Climate change is no longer a future threat. You are living in it now, as you read this. The main problem is carbon," the institute says on its website.
Some conservative-minded politicians say Canada produces relatively few emissions — the country is responsible for just 1.5 per cent of global emissions — and maintain that it's really up to larger emitters like China, India and the U.S. to aggressively curb greenhouse gas emissions to make a meaningful change.
Goodall said that argument is problematic.
"Canada can set a good example. There are many other small countries who might feel the same, 'We can't make a difference so why bother?' We all need to realize it takes all of us to make a difference," she said.
Goodall said half-hearted climate action by the global community is driving "apathy," particular among young people.
Some recent Canadian polls show that some Generation Z and millennial voters see climate action as less of a priority than older voters, as the cost of living, the economy, housing and health care become more pressing.
There was a sense of promise after the 2015 Paris climate talks, when the world committed to hold global warming to below 2 C above pre-industrial levels, but action has been wanting in some jurisdictions, Goodall said.
"If governments all actually did what they promised to do, we wouldn't be in the mess we're in today," she said.
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