OTTAWA — Support for Canada’s contentious carbon tax has all but evaporated, new polling released Thursday suggests.
In a poll conducted by Leger on behalf of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, two-thirds of respondents said they support an immediate suspension of the unpopular and costly tax.
“The poll results are crystal clear: The vast majority of Canadians want the government to immediately suspend the carbon tax,” said CTF federal director Franco Terrazzano.
“Canadians shouldn’t have to pay the carbon tax on one more home heating bill or one more trip to the gas station.”
Of the 64% who support halting the tax, nearly 40% strongly support the move, while a quarter somewhat support its suspension.
Just under 20% of those polled did not support putting the carbon tax on ice.
Conservative voters were most likely to be strongly in support of cancelling the tax at 89%, however support among other parties was significant — with 67% of Liberals, 65% of NDP voters, 64% of Bloc Quebecois and 68% of Greens saying they want to see the tax paused.
Opposition to suspending the carbon tax ranked low across all parties — 11% for Conservatives, 33% for Liberals, 35% for NDP, 36% among BQ voters, and 32% of Greens.
After Trudeau’s announcement earlier this month that he would step down, hitting the pause button on the carbon tax has become a hot-button issue.
Aside from assurances from the Conservatives that they would make the coming federal election a referendum on carbon taxes, federal Liberals vying for party leader have discussed axing the tax.
Assuming Parliament lasts long enough after that leadership race ends, all three front-runners in the race — Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland and Karina Gould — have mentioned hobbling the tax in one way or another if chosen to lead the party.
Regardless of the outcome of the Liberal contest, the CTF is calling on the federal government to immediately halt the tax.
Terrazzano told the Sun that legislation permits cabinet to set carbon tax rates, and said that they could summarily set the rate to zero without Parliament.
The poll was conducted between Jan. 24 and Jan. 26 from 1,527 Canadians of voting age via Leger’s online panel.
While margins of error cannot be applied to online panels, an equivalent sample size would yield a margin of ±2.1%, 19 times out of 20.
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