Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says a five-minute sit down with voters would get Canadians onboard with the federal carbon tax.
The prime minister made the comment during a recent stop at a seniors’ centre in Hanmer, Ont., near Sudbury after being asked by a senior if carbon pricing was a tax grab.
“The Conservatives have to twist themselves in knots and make [the carbon tax] sound very different than it actually is to try to get people outraged about it,” Mr. Trudeau said. “That’s the answer in two seconds. Now if I can only have five minutes to explain it like that to every Canadian, we’d be better off.”
Mr. Trudeau’s remarks, which were transcribed by a Parliamentary Press Gallery pool reporter, were first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter. The media was asked to leave the room shortly after he made the comment.
Mr. Trudeau stopped in at Le Rendezvous de Vallé seniors’ club on March 1 after a press conference at the Health Sciences North hospital in Sudbury, where he talked about the federal government’s $200 billion investment in health care over the next decade.
The carbon tax has been an ongoing issue for the federal government, with the Liberals rebranding its carbon pricing-rebate program last month to address what it calls “confusion” among Canadians.
A recent Abacus Data poll found that public perception of the carbon tax and the related rebate program is largely negative, even in provinces where Liberals hold a relatively higher number of seats. Nearly 50 percent of all respondents said the carbon tax is a key factor causing inflation.
In Ontario, 45 percent of survey respondents said they thought the carbon tax was a bad policy compared to 37 percent who described it as “good.” In the Atlantic provinces, 49 percent of respondents thought the policy was bad while just 31 percent believed it was good.
Levied by the Liberal government in 2019, Canada’s carbon tax is the price placed on the carbon content of fuels to reduce CO2 emissions. Mr. Trudeau has described it as a necessity not only to foster greener thinking but to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
Carbon pricing kicked off at $20 per tonne in 2019 and was set to increase by $10 per tonne each year until it reached $50 in 2022–23. It was then set to rise by $15 per tonne every year until it eventually reaches $170 per tonne in 2030–31.
