(Ottawa) The Conservatives’ campaign against the carbon tax is based on an erroneous report and they must recognize it, says Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault. The report in question published in 2022 by the Parliamentary Budget Officer overestimates the negative impact of this federal pricing, but its author maintains that this does not change his conclusions.
“I now hope that the Conservative Party will also recognize that its entire campaign on the fact that people pay more than they receive is false and that it is based on a false premise,” said Minister Guilbeault in the melee of press Wednesday.
The error, discreetly reported on the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s website in April, had gone unnoticed until recently.
“Obviously, that changes a lot of things,” he said. We add into the analysis the price that companies pay on which obviously there is no discount, so it is certain that this distorts the data, it distorts the conclusions. »
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, Ryan Turnbull, wrote to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Yves Giroux, on Tuesday to ask that the update of the erroneous report coming by the fall be more visible.
“At a time when misinformation about carbon pricing is rife, this is deeply unfortunate, as your office has a well-deserved reputation for rigorous, nonpartisan analysis,” he wrote.
Day after day, Conservatives call for the abolition of the carbon tax during question period.
PHOTO ADRIAN WYLD, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Parliamentary Budget Officer, Yves Giroux
“It’s a fairly minor error,” said Mr. Giroux in an interview. He does not expect the correction to change his report’s conclusion on the economic impact of the carbon tax. He concluded that over time the cost of carbon will be higher than the rebate sent by the government to households in the provinces and territories where it applies.
The carbon tax must increase annually by $15 per tonne to reach $170 per tonne in 2030.
It does not apply to Quebec and British Columbia which have their own carbon pricing system.