Poilievre turns to Parliament to force Trudeau to meet with premiers on the carbon tax
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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is asking MPs to compel Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to sit down with the premiers to discuss the federal carbon tax at a first ministers’ meeting.
Poilievre tabled a motion in the House of Commons that demands Trudeau “convene a carbon tax emergency meeting” with Canada’s 13 provincial and territorial leaders to address the “ongoing carbon tax crisis and the financial burden it places on Canadians.”
It also asks that Trudeau accept “plans for provinces to opt-out of the federal carbon tax to pursue other responsible ideas to lower emissions” — an ongoing request of some premiers who maintain they can fight climate change in their jurisdictions through measures other than a tax.
Trudeau has so far rebuffed calls to meet with the premiers on the issue.
Last week, in an interview with CBC Radio’s The Current, Trudeau said he met with the premiers in 2016 and a pan-Canadian climate change plan was agreed to then. The plan included a price of carbon designed to drive down the country’s emissions.
He repeated that line in question period Tuesday, saying the provinces agreed to go ahead with a carbon pricing regime eight years ago.
The Conservatives countered by pointing out that Trudeau is the only leader from that long-ago meeting still in power.
“Pokémon Go, dabbing, Harambe — that’s what was popular in 2016,” Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman said.
Poilievre accuses Trudeau of dodging the premiers
Speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill Tuesday, Poilievre said Trudeau is dodging a face-to-face with the premiers because he’s “too scared.”
“Trudeau is in hiding. Do you blame him? He’s losing the debate. Canadians want to axe the tax. There is going to be a carbon tax election and whether Trudeau hides from me or not, he’s going to have to face me in a carbon tax election,” he said.
Later in the Commons, Poilievre touted the premiers’ meeting as a chance to force the federal government to change course.
“Let’s grant relief to our people now,” he said.
“Everybody understands that tax is driving people to the food bank. Will [the prime minister] agree to a televised carbon tax conference if he’s so sure of himself on this issue?” Poilievre asked of Trudeau.
As Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called on the prime minister to hold a televised meeting with premiers about the carbon tax, Justin Trudeau said the rebate is ‘helping people with the high cost of living and groceries’ and accused the Conservatives of blocking legislation that would provide more support to Canadians.
Trudeau and Poilievre also traded shots by citing different Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) reports about the financial effect the tax has on Canadians.
Trudeau pointed to a PBO report that found most households will see a net fiscal gain — the federal rebate will more than cover what those households pay in carbon taxes.
“We developed a way to fight climate change and reduce emissions and put more money in peoples’ pockets and we’re going to continue doing that,” Trudeau said.
But the PBO also said, in another report frequently cited by Poilievre, that when taking into account the knock-on economic effects of the carbon tax, most households will actually see a net loss.
The PBO said the tax will have a negative effect on the larger economy, leading to a loss of employment and investment income for some families.
The federal rebates won’t be enough to offset both the tax and the slightly lower incomes some Canadians will collect as a result of the levy, the PBO said.
That PBO report did not, however, consider the cost of doing nothing about climate change.
The motion to force a first ministers’ meeting is the latest manoeuvre by Poilievre and his party to stir up opposition to the carbon levy, which increased as planned on April 1 despite repeated Conservative attempts to delay the spike.
In an attempt to bring down the government over the carbon tax, the Conservatives introduced a non-confidence motion in the Commons before the two-week Easter break. It was soundly defeated when Bloc Québécois and NDP MP rallied to support the Liberals.
Most premiers publicly opposed the latest carbon tax hike, saying that at a time of high inflation and cost of living concerns, making fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and propane more expensive is unfair to cash-strapped consumers.
After the tax increase, people can expect to pay about three cents more for a litre of gas than they did last month.
The government’s Canada carbon rebate, meanwhile, is designed to wholly compensate most consumers for additional costs imposed by the carbon levy.
A number of premiers, including Alberta’s Danielle Smith, Ontario’s Doug Ford and Nova Scotia’s Tim Houston, have called for a first ministers’ meeting to hash out a way forward with a tax caught in the political crosshairs.
“I’ve been in constant communication on a daily basis with a number of premiers. We aren’t happy about it, to say the least,” Ford told reporters on Friday. “He needs to sit down with us.”
“The carbon tax has contributed to increasing stress and financial pain for millions of Canadians,” Smith wrote in a letter to the prime minister on Thursday. She also urged him to “act immediately to convene a first ministers’ meeting.”
While the federal government agreed to lift the tax on home heating oil last year to help mostly rural consumers who rely on this fuel source, Trudeau and federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault have said repeatedly they will not entertain any other exemptions to tax, which is the centrepiece of the Liberal government’s climate change policy.
Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson says it’s the provinces’ responsibility to ‘come up with something that is a reasonable option to have a conversation’ about the carbon tax. Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre’s opposition motion calls for the prime minister to meet with all of the premiers.
Liberal MP Adam van Koeverden, the parliamentary secretary to Guilbeault, aggressively pushed back against Poilievre’s motion Tuesday. He called the Conservative leader a climate-change denier who threatens the country’s future.
He also called Poilievre “the petro-puppet from Carleton,” a reference to his rural Ottawa riding.
“He’s never earned an honest red cent in his life. The only job he’s had is here in the House of Commons,” van Koeverden said. He called Poilievre an MP with “no expertise” on climate issues and accused him of irresponsibly whipping up anxiety about a levy that will help Canada achieve its environmental targets,
“I know they don’t believe in climate change, but Canadians do,” the Ontario MP said of Conservatives.
Van Koeverden pointed to last year’s devastating wildfires — natural disasters that cost the country roughly $1.5 billion in economic losses — as justification for a tax that is designed to encourage Canadians to pick cleaner and greener fuel sources.
“Climate change is an existential threat to our economy and our livelihoods and Conservatives want to ignore it,” van Koeverden said.
Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Ottawa is prepared to meet with premiers on climate matters if they have “thoughts about a realistic proposal.”
Right now, Wilkinson said, there’s a lot of political posturing about the carbon tax, with few suggestions for an alternative arrangement that would meaningfully curb emissions.
“Having a conversation with a bunch of folks who actually have no climate plan and no plan to actually address the climate issue is pretty hard …” he said.
In addition to six of the 10 premiers and the Conservative Opposition, Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, also endorsed the idea of a first ministers’ conference on the topic, but suggested the agenda for such a meeting should include more than just the federal carbon tax.
Speaking on Monday to an event organized by Canada 2020, a progressive think tank, Carney emphasized the importance of decarbonization and positioning Canada as a world leader in green energy.
“Given the events over the past year, we need to reestablish the consensus for this imperative,” Carney said. “And so I very much welcome Premier Smith’s suggestion of a First Ministers meeting on climate. She was a little more narrowly focused, but I think it could be broadened out.”
But Carney, who also served as governor of the Bank of England, suggested that all levels of government should come to that meeting with tangible analysis in hand — and with a commitment to maintain a level of stringency in Canadian climate policy.
“In addition, what I would suggest in those discussions, and going forward, is that governments of all levels focus on and publish carbon value-for-money assessments of their policies. So, in other words, the impact of those policies,” he said.
“And that they follow a basic principle. Given the competitive environment globally, given the social imperative, given our responsibilities to our children, but they follow a basic principle that if they’re going to take a policy out, they need to put something else in that’s at least as effective.”
