NDP reversals on carbon taxes pre-election gift to Poilievre

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So according to David Eby, the NDP premier of British Columbia, the best carbon tax in the world is bad for British Columbians.

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Meanwhile, according to federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national carbon tax, which borrowed heavily from B.C.’s model, is bad for Canadians.

Describing these policy reversals by the NDP at the federal and provincial levels last week as “flip-flops” given their support of carbon taxes up to now, doesn’t do it justice.

This is more like blowing a two-and-a-half reverse somersaults dive in the pike position at the Olympics and ending up doing a massive belly flop into the pool.

It makes you wonder if NDP strategists have been infiltrated by double agents working for federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, because they’ve just handed him two more clubs to beat Trudeau over the head with heading into the next federal election, where Poilievre wants his promise to scrap Trudeau’s carbon tax to be the defining issue.

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Of these two policy reversals by the NDP last week, the most devastating for the Trudeau government is Eby’s about face.

When B.C.’s then Liberal government brought in North America’s first revenue-neutral carbon tax in 2008, it was widely praised by everyone from the United Nations, to the World Bank, to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development — as well as by the Trudeau government itself when it was elected in 2015 and imposed a federal carbon tax in 2019 — as the best, or among the very best, climate policies in the world.

Ditto climate activists, climate scientists and climate think tanks, many funded by the federal government.

Sixteen years later, however, Eby, heading into a provincial election in October facing a stiff challenge from B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad — who has vowed to scrap the carbon tax if he wins — has conceded that it’s unsaleable to many voters and could make the NDP unelectable.

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“The context and the challenges for British Columbians have changed,” Eby said in explaining his reversal.

“A lot of British Columbians are struggling with affordability.”

(Among many criticisms of B.C.’s carbon tax, is that it hasn’t been revenue neutral — that is returning all the money it raises to taxpayers — since 2013.)

Killing the carbon tax would be especially complicated in B.C. because it operates outside the federal carbon tax system, along with Quebec, and if any B.C. government tries to scrap it, it would likely be replaced by Trudeau’s carbon tax.

That’s why Eby said on Thursday he’d kill B.C.’s carbon tax if Trudeau doesn’t replace it with his federal carbon tax, which is highly unlikely.

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Both Eby and Singh say they will replace the current carbon tax system, with a new climate policy that focuses on making big industrial polluters pay, as opposed to imposing added costs on the backs of working people.

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This is incredibly disingenuous, and on that count Trudeau mocking Singh for his flip-flop on carbon taxes, after the NDP leader earlier “ripped up” his supply and confidence governing deal with the Liberals, is justified.

First, both Singh and Eby agreed prior to their policy reversals that carbon taxes (in this context, meaning the federal fuel charge imposed on consumers for gasoline, natural gas and other forms of fossil fuel energy) were the most efficient and economical ways to lower industrial greenhouse gases.

Second, they agreed that climate rebates — now called climate action incentive payments — resulted in most households receiving more money in rebates than they pay in carbon taxes.

The reality is that there is no free lunch when it comes to reducing industrial greenhouse gas emissions and that the added costs of doing so will ultimately be borne by the public under any carbon pricing system.

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The valid argument Eby and Singh made is that Trudeau and the Liberals undermined the credibility of carbon pricing by treating Canadians unequally — for example by exempting the carbon tax for three years from households that use oil to heat their homes, but not natural gas.

When critics described this decision as an obvious attempt by the Trudeau Liberals to shore up their declining political support in Atlantic Canada, Trudeau’s minister of rural economic development Gudie Hutchings said if provinces like Alberta wanted similar deals, they should elect more Liberal MPs to have their voices heard in cabinet.

Small wonder voters are cynical about politicians and governments today, who will abandon their principles and reverse their policies at a moment’s notice, if they think it will help them get elected.

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