Over the last three years, COVID, inflation and rising interest rates have really hurt. Financial security for many is a thing of the past. Poilievre with his axe the tax has perfectly played on the disgruntled electorate.

The Liberals initiated carbon tax has become a political foil used by the federal Poilievre Conservatives to knife the Liberals and NDP. Understandably Canadians do not like paying taxes and feel they are overtaxed. The Conservatives know this, and the thrust of their electoral campaigns, federally and provincially,  always includes reducing taxes which always benefits the wealthy.

We are all aware of the success Poilievre has had in disparaging the carbon tax and attracting support to the Federal Conservative party. Clearly this carries over into the provincial political realm as well. Poilievre’s axe-the-tax campaign has swept across this whole country excluding Quebec, which has a cap-and-trade system. Ontario also had a cap-and-trade system until it was scrapped by the Ford government only to be replaced by the Federal liberals carbon tax.

Intuitively, I have always felt the cap and trade was a much fairer and, I believe, more effective means of achieving carbon reductions. When I think of the carbon tax, I think of the folks in Northern Ontario who have no other means other than driving cars for long distances to and from work or for supplies and how they pay so much more for fuel costs with the carbon tax. For them the carbon tax is not revenue neutral as they pay more than the offsetting rebate while I, who only drives short distances, receive more than I pay in with the carbon tax. The consumer side of the tax is a regressive and often unfair form of taxation. This lack of fairness is not mentioned in Poilievre’s axe the tax jargon.

In Canada energy policy falls under provincial jurisdiction and the ONDP, with the support of the federal party, could promise that if elected they would replace the carbon tax with a cap and trade system as exists in Quebec and California.

Cap and trade is a tax on corporations and because it is strictly a corporate levy It does not directly tax consumers at the pump. To my mind it is fairer and a much better way of assuring that we achieve the carbon reductions that Canada committed to by way of international agreements. The federal liberals have stated that provinces can enact different plans as long as they meet the carbon reduction targets. Replacing the carbon tax with cap and trade would disarm the formible axe the tax campaign of the Poilievre Conservatives.

The Canadian public has been repeatedly told, by way of media messaging, that a panel of experts concluded that the carbon tax is the most cost-efficient means of reducing carbon emissions, but they do not explain anything beyond that pronouncement which I have for some time taken with a grain of salt and which is seemingly a complete contradiction of an earlier report.

My preference for cap and trade, a market based system, was reinforced with a reading of Jack Layton’s book “Speaking Out Louder” wherein he states “In the spring of 2002 the government released a discussion paper called “Canada’s Contribution to Addressing Climate Change” wherein the recommendation from four options was cap and trade. “Overall, the report concludes that the most economically beneficial way for Canada to meet its Kyoto commitments is by implementing an emissions trading system…” which as Jack says is Cap and Trade.

Jack Layton, in his book, further states that there was a lot of corporate pushbacks against cap and trade which may explain the Premier Ford’s seemingly quick about face conversion that led to the switch to a carbon tax in Ontario. Ford’s cancelling the cap and trade was judged illegal by a provincial court but it still it stands today as Ford ignored the court decision, broked the law and scrapped the tax. And now he like all Conservatives have cried out, with great effect, against the system he, in effect, had installed by scrapping the cap and trade. Judging from Quebec there does not appear to be a political price paid by that province for their cap and trade system which, importantly, reaches the carbon reduction targets set by the federal government and is a fairer all-around taxation system. The Conservatives are not making the headway in Quebec that they are across the rest of the country.

Poilievres Conservatives have stated that in the upcoming federal election they will make axing the tax a signatory campaign issue. Getting rid of the carbon tax and replacing it with cap and trade could change this political dynamic and reduce the likelihood of Poilievre Conservatives ever forming a government.

Fraternally,

Ron Brydges