When the going gets tough, political leaders can feel the need to act, and scrambling for a more secure position is not always the most graceful thing to do.
NDP Leader Jagmeet SinghAlso) from last week Keep your distance The gulf between himself and the Liberal government’s carbon pricing policy.
Speaking to reporters in Montreal, Singh offered two thoughts on the government’s consumer carbon tax. First, he said he opposes the government’s decision to exempt home heating fuel from the federal fuel tax. Second, Singh said the New Democrats “want a climate emergency response that doesn’t put the burden on workers.”
Only the NDP The debate over the tax exemption for home heating oil It was announced last fall, and the wisdom of the change is certainly up for debate.
But just because the Liberal government’s approach is inconsistent doesn’t mean the New Democrats should abandon the policy entirely. If the New Democrats think the Liberals’ approach is inconsistent, they can simply promise to remove the exemptions.
Party insiders are discussing how NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and British Columbia Premier David Eby’s move to distance themselves from the Liberal Party’s carbon tax will affect Canada’s climate policy.
Singh’s comments about the “burden” of climate policy suggest a broader rejection of the policy, but they also belie the fact that 90 per cent of fuel tax revenue is returned to Canadians. Found Most households, especially low-income ones, will receive more from the tax refund than they would have to pay for the extra costs.
If Singh opposes a federal carbon tax, he needs to explain what he’ll do instead. Federal fuel taxes are projected to account for 8-14% of Canada’s emissions reductions between now and 2030. How will he make up for that?
The question facing Canada’s political leaders today is not whether to impose a carbon tax, but how Canada can reduce emissions and do its part to combat global climate change.
While political leaders have been vocal in their criticism of carbon taxes, many of those same politicians The bigger questions remain unanswered.
Poirièvre’s tireless campaign against the carbon tax
The simplest explanation for Singh’s ambiguity is that he is deviating from the NDP’s election promises. 2019 and 2021The remarks, coming as his party said it would maintain the carbon tax, were a political threat from Conservative Leader Pierre Poirierbre, who has campaigned loudly and vigorously against a federal carbon tax over the past two years.
Addressing Conservative MPs last Sunday, Poiriervre doubled down, warning of “mass hunger and malnutrition” if the carbon tax goes ahead as planned. High carbon prices would “bring the whole economy to a halt,” he said, ushering in an economic “nuclear winter.” He argued that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “insane obsession with a carbon tax” is “an existential threat to our economy and our way of life.”
Conservatives Darkly warning About Potential impact Carbon taxes have been around for a long time. On Sunday, Poirievre said the federal carbon tax, which has been in place for more than five years, is a direct cause of increased food bank use and more hungry children. But the recent rise in food prices has More likely due to other factors.
Poirievre’s latest arguments against a carbon tax are based on economic projections submitted to the Parliamentary Budget Office. release The federal government introduced the program this spring, and data shows that the federal carbon price is on track to reach $170 per tonne of emissions in 2030, which would reduce Canada’s GDP by about one percent.
In presenting these findings, Poirierbre said that a carbon tax would “punch a hole” of $25 billion in the Canadian economy — to be clear, that $25 billion “hole” is the difference between Canada’s real gross domestic product being $2.688 trillion or $2.663 trillion in 2030.
That’s not pointless, but there are many existing taxes and regulations that impose some cost on the economy, and the mere existence of a cost doesn’t necessarily make a measure worthless.
When releasing the data in June last year, the Federal Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Warned The estimates do not constitute a “comprehensive” economic analysis of the impact of federal carbon pricing policy, and in particular the data does not take into account any economic benefits associated with decarbonization.
The government also pointed to the potential benefits of reducing emissions. The social cost of carbon Based on estimates of the damage to the global economy per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions, the government projects that the “avoided costs” of a federal carbon pricing policy could reach $23 billion by 2030.
In any discussion of climate change, there is a tension between domestic costs and global benefits. Poirievre points out the former, but the social cost of carbon is countermeasure The latter. But the costs of climate change remain relevant to the broader debate.
in Report In a 2022 report, the Canadian Climate Institute estimated that under a scenario in which global emissions remain high, the impacts of climate change could reduce Canada’s GDP by $101 billion by mid-century. Under a low-emissions scenario, the annual cost would drop to $78 billion.Investing in adaptation This will reduce the cost even further.
Also, the $25 billion decline in GDP is both Eliminate the industrial carbon price and consumer carbon taxes, which are elements of the federal carbon pricing policy. And so far, Poirievre has only committed to eliminating the consumer tax. Alberta’s major oil and gas producers asked He asked for clarification of his position on industrial prices.
Meanwhile, Singh said the NDP would increase industrial prices in some form.
If not a carbon tax, what is it?
Of course, if Poirievre had a set of proposals that would achieve the same level of emissions reductions at a lower cost, he could simply present them. But so far, he has not done so. (Economists have long argued that putting a price on carbon is the most efficient way to reduce emissions.)
in Essay In a paper published this week, Sean Speer, a former policy director in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, argued that “Canadian Conservatives should not shy away from climate policy.” In fact, he said, Conservatives “can lead the way.”
That’s an interesting idea. But climate change has been a known threat for more than 30 years. Harper himself said in 2007: It is called It is “perhaps the greatest threat to the future of humanity today.”
But it’s unclear what the Conservatives will do to meet Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions targets in 2024. In addition to opposing a carbon tax, Poirievre has also said he would repeal the government’s clean fuels regulations. Alberta Premier Daniel Smith has criticized both the carbon tax and the clean fuels regulations. Clean Energy Regulation and Caps on oil and gas emissions.
Like any public policy, a carbon tax is worthy of debate, but ultimately, the question facing Canadians is not whether there should be a carbon tax.
The real question, the biggest question facing Canada’s political leaders right now, is what the government should do to reduce the emissions that cause climate change. And the repeal of the carbon tax is not going to make that question any less.
