MPs to vote on Poilievre’s pitch to exempt carbon price from all home heating

Members of Parliament will vote today on a motion from the federal Conservatives calling for the carbon price to be lifted from all forms of home heating and not just heating oil.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says the temporary heating oil exemption Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced last month is divisive.

Poilievre says Trudeau is engaging in regional favouritism in a bid to reverse the Liberals’ sluggish poll numbers in Atlantic Canada.

Trudeau says heating oil is much pricier to use than natural gas and that a disproportionate number of households in Atlantic Canada still use heating oil, and need more time to replace their furnaces with heat pumps.

The Liberals say there are actually more Canadians outside the Atlantic region that use home heating oil but only three Atlantic provinces have signed on to a program to help oil users switch to electric heat pumps.

The New Democrats plan to vote in favour of Poilievre’s motion after failing to convince the Conservatives to push for the GST to be removed from home heating instead.