(Ottawa) The Liberals’ flagship climate policy, carbon pricing, is not collapsing, and it is not the main reason for inflation, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, despite Conservative insistence.
However, the Conservatives’ message on carbon pricing has been effective, Mr. Trudeau admits, even if he does not address that if the carbon price disappears, so will the rebate checks on which, according to him, Canadians now matter.
“Conservative politicians have managed to scapegoat the price of pollution as the reason why everything is expensive right now,” Mr. Trudeau said in an end-of-year interview with The Canadian Press.
Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem clarified earlier this year that carbon pricing was only responsible for about a twentieth of inflation this year, while the inflation rate hovers around 3 %.
In 2022, when inflation was more than twice as high, the impact of this policy would have been about a fiftieth.
Carbon pricing applies directly to the cost of fuels, but it can also be integrated into the cost of goods, such as food, as fuel producers and retailers pass on costs throughout the supply chain. ‘supply.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has been holding rallies across Canada for months, arguing that removing the carbon price would make goods, like food, affordable again.
However, the reality is that global factors such as supply chains and geopolitical instability have had a greater impact, Trudeau said Monday.
These problems would not go away if a Canadian government removed carbon pricing.
Mr. Trudeau said the fact that the Conservatives are trying to say that the only thing hurting Canadians right now is that we have a price on pollution “does not take us in the direction that everyone wants to go and that the economy must take. »
Controversy in the Maritimes
Canada’s national carbon price is approaching its fifth anniversary.
It is more controversial than ever thanks to the incessant campaign against this project by the conservatives.
Also contributing to this situation was the government’s own decision to temporarily suppress the price of home heating oil, which many saw as a cynical political ploy in response to poll results in the Atlantic provinces, where the largest percentage of Households use fuel oil.
The Liberals insisted the move was about making the policy more effective for heating oil users and that it was not about politics.
That argument was undermined, however, when Newfoundland and Labrador MP and Minister of Rural Economic Development Gudie Hutchings said the Prairie provinces could be more successful in lobbying their constituents if they elected more liberals.
The decision to create this exemption triggered an avalanche of criticism. The Liberals have been accused of regional favoritism and demands are growing every day for the government to create more exclusions.
A Conservative private member’s bill to exempt propane and natural gas used to dry grain and heat farm buildings from carbon pricing has made its way through the Senate.
An amended version of the bill, which would only apply to grain drying, could pass the Upper House this week. If the House of Commons approves the changes made in the Senate, the bill will become law. Otherwise, the bill returns to the Senate.
Meanwhile, last week, the Chiefs of Ontario, who represent First Nations in the province, filed an application for judicial review in the Federal Court.
They are asking the court to order the government to negotiate a new plan with Ontario’s First Nations, arguing that rebates offered under carbon pricing exclude them. To get a rebate, people must file their income taxes. People who work on indigenous reserves do not do this.
On December 10, the new premier of the Northwest Territories, RJ Simpson, said he wanted his territory to be completely exempt.
Mr. Simpson told CBC News that if high costs really pushed people to find greener alternatives, they would have chosen alternative fuels in his territory years ago. The price of fuel is high and he said alternatives are not easy to access for his residents.
No new exclusions, maintains Trudeau
Conservatives, who have campaigned against carbon pricing for years, pounced on the recent developments and added even more tone to their arguments.
Mr. Poilievre has organized dozens of tax rallies across Canada since the summer and last week attempted to use political blocking tactics to force the round-the-clock vote in an effort to convince the Liberals to give in and end the carbon price.
They also tabled, without success, a motion calling for the removal of the carbon price for “families, farmers and First Nations”.
On Monday, Conservative MP Bob Zimmer called for an emergency debate on the need to eliminate carbon pricing altogether. He didn’t get it.
Some experts have suggested that the carbon pricing policy is collapsing, but Mr. Trudeau has categorically denied this claim.
“It absolutely will not collapse and there will be no more exclusions,” he maintained on Monday.
It opened the door to negotiate something that would better meet the needs of communities living in unique circumstances, but without exempting them from the policy.
“We will continue to work with (the First Nations), we will continue to work with the northern territories where we understand that the framework is different,” he said.
When questioned, he did not provide further details on what this meant.
Liberals have long struggled to clearly explain how carbon pricing works, and why and how people get a rebate.
These rebates, which range from $240 to $386 every three months in most provinces, are supposed to cover the price of carbon, but keep in place an incentive that would allow people to save more by using less fuel.
The less fuel you buy, the lower the carbon price you pay, but the discounts remain in effect at the same level.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer said about eight in 10 households receive more from the rebate than they pay in carbon pricing, largely because small businesses pay a significant portion of the carbon price but get some back less than a tenth.
Mr. Trudeau said he thinks people now understand that the cuts “would disappear if we didn’t have a price on pollution.”