If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberals lose power next year, Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives will need to confront the inescapable reality of getting rid of the federal carbon tax, as Poilievre has promised.
It’s going to be a mess.
The problem is that, if, as the Liberals constantly claim, their carbon tax is the most inexpensive and efficient way to lower Canada’s industrial greenhouse gas emissions, then why do they need 140 other government programs, costing taxpayers more than $200 billion, to do it?
Canada’s 2030 emission target is to lower our emissions to at least 40% below 2005 levels in 2030.
The problem is the latest government data for 2022 shows we’re a mere 7% below 2005 levels — suggesting the government’s targets are fantasies.
The Liberals don’t keep precise records of how much the federal fuel charge and the output based pricing system for large industrial emitters — the two major components of carbon pricing — will cut emissions, although they estimate that combined they will lower them by up to one-third of the 2030 target.
But that means at least two-thirds of the cuts will have to come from the other 140 government initiatives, including an oil and gas sector emissions cap, methane regulations, waste methane capture, clean fuel regulations, investment tax credits clean electricity regulations and electric vehicle mandates.
In other words Trudeau’s climate change plan includes not only a national carbon price, but also “the heavy hand of regulations” plus “incentives … subsidies and rewards” to the private sector by a government attempting to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, which seldom ends well.
While the federal fuel charge is the most visible cost to consumers, it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the total costs of Trudeau’s carbon pricing program.
To complicate matters, Poilievre hasn’t yet made clear if he’s going to eliminate only the federal fuel charge or the output based pricing system for industrial emitters as well.
Recently, Trudeau said he brought in his carbon tax because, “I prefer a clean, market-based solution” to addressing climate change, as opposed to “the heavy hand of regulations” and “incentives … subsidies and rewards.”
The problem is that his climate change program has all of them.