Ottawa Gave WEF $500,000 for Report ‘Justifying’ Carbon Tax: Tory MP

Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis rises during Question Period in Ottawa on Sept. 27, 2022. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis is criticizing the Liberal government for providing nearly half a million dollars to the World Economic Forum (WEF) to produce an environmental report promoting the carbon tax.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paid the WEF nearly $500,000 “of Canadian taxpayer money for the New Nature Economy Report justifying his carbon tax,” Ms. Lewis says in a March 18 social media post. “Global interest groups should not be trusted to care about the prosperity of Canadians.”

Ms. Lewis has been the foremost critic of the WEF within the Conservative ranks. She has routinely unearthed information about cooperation between Ottawa and the WEF through access-to-information requests available to MPs.

Ms. Lewis obtained information about the report through an order paper she submitted in June 2023. She asked for details about all federal government engagements with the WEF, including contracts, transfer payments, and memoranda of understanding.

Government departments provided their consolidated responses in an inquiry of ministry filed in September. Analysis of the records shows Ottawa has sent nearly $23.5 million to the WEF since 2015.

The WEF is a global think tank that hosts events with the world’s most powerful figures from politics and industry. It says its mission is to “improve the state of the world” and to “shape global, regional and industry agendas.”

Critics like Ms. Lewis say the organization exerts undue influence on democratically-elected governments.

WEF Chairman Klaus Schwab has previously said the organization has penetrated government cabinets—including that of Mr. Trudeau—through the group’s Young Global Leaders (YGL) program.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland is an alumnus of the YGL and she sits on the board of trustees of the WEF. Her office and department have not responded to multiple inquiries about her involvement with the group.

Ms. Lewis highlighted the WEF-created and taxpayer-financed New Nature Economy Report as part of a blitz her party is mounting against the April 1 carbon tax hike. Canadians in most provinces will see the tax rise from 14.31 cents to 17.61 per litre of gasoline.

Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC) is the department that provided the WEF $493,937 to produce the report, which was released in 2020.

The department says the purpose of the project was to enable the WEF to produce and disseminate a report which establishes the “business and economic case for safeguarding nature.”

“This report will be directed at senior decision makers in governments and businesses who have the influence and ability to shift business-as-usual” approaches, ECCC says in the inquiry of ministry.

The WEF report, which acknowledges the Government of Canada, says nature is in a state of “crisis” and discusses solutions to address it.

“The climate crisis, nature loss, water scarcity are all interconnected and we must address them simultaneously to achieve a decarbonized, nature-positive world,” Alan Jope, then CEO of British multinational Unilever, says in the preface.

Another part of the report says business action alone is not sufficient to develop a “nature-positive, low-carbon” economy. It says government measures are a necessity.

“To make nature-positive models investable, explicitly pricing in and articulating environmental cost factors to penalize unsustainable practices — such as through carbon taxes, for example — will be a game changer,” it says.

The Liberal government says having a price on pollution with the carbon tax is a key measure to reduce emissions. It maintains eight out of 10 households get more money back through a carbon rebate (previously the Climate Action Incentive Payment). The Parliamentary Budget Officer has disputed that claim.

The tax is also designed to be a wealth redistribution scheme, according to Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.

“The people who are paying are the richest among us, which is exactly how the system was designed,” said Mr. Guilbeault, who has declared himself to be a socialist in the House of Commons.