(Ottawa) Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Thursday that his party did not vote against a free trade agreement with Ukraine on Tuesday, but rather rejected the bill because it favors carbon pricing.
The Liberals counter that the Conservatives are following in the footsteps of Republican elected officials in the United States who want to reduce support for Kyiv against the Russian invasion, which led to a heated exchange Thursday in the House of Commons.
Parliament is debating a government bill that provides for the implementation of a new free trade agreement between Canada and Ukraine.
The proposed update to the 2016 agreement focuses primarily on maintaining the market access negotiated by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. The amended deal also includes new investment provisions that Ukraine says could contribute to an eventual reconstruction of the war-torn country.
The text tabled in the House also adds a new environmental chapter, in which the two countries agree to “promote carbon pricing”.
Ukraine implemented a carbon pricing system years ago and its ambassador is urging Canada to adopt the law.
The Conservatives, who oppose this measure, voted unanimously on Tuesday in the House against referring the bill for study to the Standing Committee on International Trade, despite the approval of all the other parties.
“We introduced the free trade agreement [avec l’Ukraine](but) we voted against Justin Trudeau’s imposition of a carbon tax in this agreement,” Mr. Poilievre explained Thursday, saying that carbon pricing had been “devastating” for the Canadian economy .
While in Toronto on Thursday, Mr. Poilievre told reporters that carbon pricing in Ukraine would hamper its economic recovery, even though the country has applied it since 2011.
“It is cruel and frankly disgusting that Trudeau’s ideological obsession with taxing the working class, seniors and suffering families took precedence over what should have been a free trade agreement,” he said. he declares.
Liberal House Leader Karina Gould argued the Conservatives were abandoning Ukraine and not taking climate change seriously. “With Tuesday’s vote, when the Conservative Party of Canada voted against the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement in a diversionary move […] there’s something deeper going on,” she told reporters on Parliament Hill.
“We have seen a radical shift in right-wing political circles in the United States away from Ukraine and toward support for Russia,” Mr.me Gould, accusing the conservatives of inaugurating “an American-style right-wing policy.”