Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday criticized the NDP for getting carbon pricing wrong, accusing Jagmeet Singh of caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
Speaking to reporters in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, Trudeau criticized the NDP in response to a question about the upcoming by-election in Montreal, arguing that voters in the riding deserve better than a party that would “walk away” from progressive values and the fight against climate change.
“I think Jagmeet Singh and the NDP really care about the environment. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that they have no idea what to do about climate change,” Trudeau said.
“They had no idea about the environment, and one of the first things they did after walking away from that agreement to deliver progressive things to Canadians was walk away from any plan to fight climate change.”
Trudeau was referring to the NDP leader’s announcement last week that the party was abandoning the confidence-and-supply agreement with the minority government.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that would not put the burden of fighting climate change on the shoulders of workers, but he did not say whether that plan would include a consumer price on carbon.
Canada levies a tax on fuel purchased by individuals and small businesses and another on a portion of the actual emissions produced by large industrial companies. The price per tonne is the same, but the systems work differently.
Singh’s noncommittal stance comes as the NDP is trying to present itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the upcoming federal election.
While the Conservatives have blamed the carbon tax for driving up the cost of living, the prime minister once again cited the parliamentary budget officer’s finding that eight in 10 households in federally backed jurisdictions receive more money in rebates than they pay in carbon prices.
“However, Jagmeet Singh and the NDP are bowing to political pressure from Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives,” Trudeau said.
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“This is not what Montrealers expect or deserve.”
On Sept. 16, voters will go to the polls in the Montreal riding of LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, which held the seat held by former Justice Minister David Lametti before he resigned last winter.
Another by-election will be held on the same day in the Winnipeg riding of Elmwood—Transcona, a seat that has been held by the NDP.
Poilievre responded to Singh’s comments on Thursday by posting a video pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
Responding to Trudeau’s comments on Friday, the NDP said in a statement that the prime minister “destroyed” any credibility their plan might have had when he allowed an exemption for heating oil, a move that disproportionately favoured Atlantic Canadians. While the exemption applies everywhere, a higher proportion of households use heating oil in the Atlantic region than anywhere else.
“We will not accept lessons from the Trudeau government, knowing that they have not met a single climate target,” said Laurel Collins, NDP environment critic.
“And we obviously won’t listen to conservatives who are dedicated to slash and burn. Pierre Poilievre would make it even easier for big polluters to continue polluting our lakes, rivers and air.”
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tone on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
Economists are broadly in favour of carbon pricing, arguing that it is the most cost-effective way to reduce emissions. It is also an initiative supported by climate activists.
Keith Stewart, an energy strategist at Greenpeace Canada, said he wants to see how the NDP plans to cut emissions and wishes Singh had said how he would shift the burden to big polluters.
“My big concern was that he seemed to be echoing Pierre Poilievre’s right-wing arguments about how unfair carbon pricing is to low-income Canadians. And that’s not true,” Stewart said.
The Liberal government is returning all the money it collects from the carbon tax to households in the form of rebates. The rebates have allowed it to promote climate policy to reduce emissions and put more money into the pockets of lower-income households.
Andrew Leach, an economics professor at the University of Alberta, said the rebates were what prompted Canada’s centre-left politicians to support the policy, which had previously been championed by conservative-leaning politicians and policymakers.
“When you redistribute average income across the board, as the federal carbon price does, it simply benefits those with lower incomes,” Leach said.
“So, (the rebates) changed the way this policy looked to progressive politicians in Canada, and transformed what was sort of a classic right-wing or centre-right policy into one that was acceptable to more left-wing politicians.”
Now, as New Democrats at the federal and provincial levels waver over consumer carbon pricing, Leach said they will have to figure out how they plan to aggressively reduce emissions without putting a price on a significant portion of emissions.
“The math gets pretty hard,” Leach said.
According to a 2022 report from Statistics Canada, about 41 per cent of Canadian emissions were the result of household consumption.
A Canadian Climate Institute report earlier this year said carbon pricing could eliminate about 100 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, with about a fifth of that amount through the consumption tax and the rest through big industry. Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault argued at the time that while the consumption tax may not have as much of an impact on emissions as the industrial price, it is still a significant amount.
Twenty million tons is roughly what 4.7 million passenger vehicles emit in a year.
Leach also noted that targeting big polluters would disproportionately affect Western Canada, making it “a very unbalanced policy from a federalist perspective.”
