As prime minister Justin Trudeau trails in polls, opposition seek to persuade voters environmental policy is a burden
Mass hunger and malnutrition. A looming nuclear winter. An existential threat to the Canadian way of life. For months, the country’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has issued dire and increasingly apocalyptic warnings about the future. The culprit? A federal carbon levy meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Anyone willing and able to change their behaviour would end up in the black. Economists, political scientists – and the parliamentary budget officer – havelow-income households receive more from the rebate than they pay in additional costs. But the Conservatives, with a significant lead in the polls, are keen to capture mounting frustration with the incumbent government and transform a federal vote into a referendum on Trudeau’s marquee climate policy.
For Canada’s environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, the fractious debate represents a crossroads for the country in addressing the effects of the climate crisis.“The reality is, it’s easy to say ‘axe the tax’,” he said. “No one likes to pay taxes. It is more complicated to explain that climate change is real, it’s costing Canadians billions of dollars and carbon pricing is one of many measures we’re putting in place to try and fight climate change. That’s harder to communicate than a slogan.
Initially, the tax was remitted in the form of a tax cut that few people noticed when they filed their taxes. Later, the government began directly depositing the money – but couldn’t get the banks to indicate the money was a rebate from the carbon tax. It took a change to the law that finally compelled banks to label government payments as the “Canada Carbon Rebate” or “CdaCarbonRebate”.
Most of the debate right now is on the fuel charge the consumer-facing carbon price, with little focus on the industrial carbon tax, said Dale Beugin, vice-president of the Canadian Climate Institute, which “delivers three times the emissions reductions by 2030” than the consumer component of the tax.
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