Canada’s carbon tax is popular, innovative and helping save the planet – but now it faces the ax | Greenhouse gas emissions

Mass hunger and malnutrition. A looming nuclear winter. An existential threat to the Canadian way of life. For months, the country’s conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre, has issued dire and increasingly apocalyptic warnings about the future. The perpetrator? A federal carbon tax intended to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

In the House of Commons this month, the Tory leader said there is only one way to prevent the devastating crisis: embattled Prime Minister Justin Trudeau must “call a ‘carbon tax’ election”.

Canada’s carbon tax, hailed as a global model of progressive environmental policy, has reduced emissions and put money in the pockets of Canadians. The levy, backed by conservative and progressive economists, has survived multiple federal elections and a Supreme Court challenge. But this time, an ongoing cost-of-living crisis and a combative conservative leader pushing a populist message have put the country’s carbon tax back in the spotlight, raising questions about whether it will spark a new national mood. will survive.

In 2018, Trudeau announced plans for the “pan-Canadian climate framework,” modeled after British Columbia’s groundbreaking carbon tax. It is striking that the levy is revenue neutral: the government does not withhold any money. Instead, it pays the entire amount back to the taxpayer in the form of a quarterly rebate. Any increase in costs due to a tax on fuel is offset by a discount of approximately the same value.

According to the federal government, a family of four in Ontario will receive C$1,120 (£630) in rebates this year. Those living in a rural community will receive C$1,344. A rural family of four in the province of Alberta receives C$2,160.

Anyone who is willing and able to change their behavior ends up in the black. Economists, political scientists – and the parliamentary budget officer – have found that low-income households receive more from the rebate than they pay in additional costs. But the Conservatives, with a significant lead in the polls, are eager to absorb growing frustration with the incumbent government and turn a federal vote into a referendum on Trudeau’s big climate policies. Their campaign message, on billboards and T-shirts, was simple: “abolish taxes.” They argue that Canadians are carrying a burden at a time when rents, groceries and transportation costs have all soared.

Kathryn Harrison, a political scientist at the University of British Columbia who has spent years studying the effects of carbon taxes on behavior and emissions, deplores the “outright falsehoods” spread for political gain.

“The current political discourse means that many Canadians do not fully understand how the policy affects them. They don’t think it works. They think they pay more than they actually do. And that to me is a very disturbing thing, not only from a climate policy perspective, but also from a democratic perspective,” she said. “This is not a debate about how much emphasis to put on one issue or another. The unpopularity of the carbon tax is largely due to voters misunderstanding it and getting the facts wrong.”

For Canada’s Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, the difficult debate marks a crossroads for the country as it tackles the impacts of the climate crisis.

“The reality is it’s easy to say ‘get rid of the tax,’” he said. “No one likes to pay taxes. It’s more complicated to explain that climate change is real, that it is costing Canadians billions of dollars and that carbon pricing is one of many actions we are taking to combat climate change. That is more difficult to convey than a slogan.”

But the tenor of the debate – and the misinformation – also suggests that something deeper is at stake.

“The climate, and more broadly the environment, is now embroiled in this culture war where facts don’t matter, where the truth has no currency,” Guilbeault said. “This is an issue that speaks to the fundamental elements of our democracies around the world, many of which are being weakened by these disinformation campaigns.”

Still, the perceived benefits of eliminating the tax have attracted other party leaders. Last month, New Democratic party leader Jagmeet Singh suggested his support was waning because he does not want policies that put the “burden on the backs of working people” – a claim rejected by experts.

“It is surprising that the federal NDP is turning its back on very progressive policies that both reduce carbon pollution and also provide rebates greater than carbon payments for lower-income households – the people he claims to support most,” Harrison said .

Guilbeault admits the federal government has been “a little slow” in correcting the waves of misinformation surrounding the levy.

“We could have done better, but the 2019 and 2021 elections, and partly the 2015 elections, were fought partly on the issue of carbon pricing – and we won those elections,” he said. “

Initially, the tax was waived in the form of a tax cut that few people noticed when they filed their taxes. Later, the government started transferring the money directly, but it was not possible to get the banks to indicate that the money was a rebate on the carbon tax. It took a change in the law that ultimately forced banks to label government payments as the “Canada Carbon Rebate” or “CdaCarbonRebate.”

As countries around the world unveil policies to blunt the impacts of a rapidly changing climate, a recent report from the Canadian Climate Institute shows that the national carbon tax, which targets both consumers and industry, is expected to reduce emissions will be reduced by as much as 50% by 2030. .

In the event that a Conservative government abolishes the national carbon tax, there will be “no way” Canada will be able to meet its 2030 emissions targets, Guilbeault said, adding that it “reduces our credibility” in negotiations with other countries moving forward with plans to reduce emissions. .

Most of the debate right now is about the fuel price and consumer-targeted carbon price, with little attention paid to the industrial carbon tax, says Dale Beugin, vice-president of the Canadian Climate Institute, which says “three times as many emissions reductions by 2030 then yields the consumer component of the tax.

Leaders of opposition parties, including Singh, have vaguely proposed strengthening the industrial portion of the carbon tax to make up for the lost benefits of the consumer tax.

“But the reality is that when you eliminate one policy – ​​in this case the carbon tax on consumers – you are forced to push harder for other levers to tackle emissions,” Beugin said. “And there aren’t many resources – buildings, vehicles – that haven’t been looked at yet.”

For Beugin, the debate underlines an uncomfortable reality about policies intended to reverse the ongoing environmental damage caused by unlimited emissions.

“Climate policy is not easy. It takes some effort to resist the things that are politically easy and simple, because that is the transformation we need,” he said. “Yes, technology is becoming cheaper, but climate policy is inevitably difficult – and you don’t want to shy away from that.”