(Ottawa) The Parliamentary Budget Officer, Yves Giroux, says he will not let himself be “muzzled” by the federal Liberals on the economic data linked to the impact of carbon pricing.
Mr. Giroux said he wanted to clarify the situation after creating a misunderstanding during a committee meeting two weeks ago.
On June 3, he was questioned about his analysis of carbon pricing before the House of Commons Finance Committee, after acknowledging earlier this spring that his initial analysis was flawed.
During this meeting, he agreed with Conservative MP Marty Morantz that the Liberals were preventing him from talking about government data.
But at another committee meeting on Monday, when Liberal MP Charles Sousa asked Mr. Giroux to confirm that assertion, he said it was an error.
He indicates that he was not supposed to disclose the actual data that Environment and Climate Change Canada provided to him to prepare his analysis, but that he was not prevented from including the data in his analysis.
The documents include a number of spreadsheets on GDP and emissions data, based on economic and climate models of the impact of carbon pricing.
The government had previously refused to make the data public, saying it only revealed part of the story without taking into account the positive economic impacts of climate investments and carbon rebates or the negative economic impacts of the changes climatic conditions themselves.
The spreadsheets were released last Thursday just as the Conservatives tabled a motion demanding their release.
Data showed that with carbon pricing, Canada’s emissions will be 12% lower in 2030 than they would be without carbon pricing, a difference that is equivalent to about 78 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions. Greenhouse.
Economically, carbon pricing will reduce national GDP by 0.9%, or $25 billion. The Conservatives say the Liberals refused to release the data because it confirms that carbon pricing has a negative economic impact.