Justin Trudeau just axed his own carbon tax
- Media Manager
- Oct 28, 2023
- 2 min read
Canada's National Observer
Written By: Max Fawcett
Published: October 28th, 2023
For months now, Pierre Poilievre has hammered the Liberal government with his familiar pledge to “axe” its carbon tax. But for all his talk, he probably never expected Justin Trudeau to actually listen. That’s effectively what happened Thursday when the prime minister announced a three-year carbon tax exemption on home heating oil, a move clearly designed to placate restless voters in Atlantic Canada. In the process, it undercut arguments the government has been making for years and made the defence of an already difficult political position nearly impossible.
This is, as I’ve written many times, largely a mess of the government’s own making. Its communications around the carbon tax and rebate have been abysmal from the beginning, and this has allowed the merchants of doubt and disinformation to run riot around an already confusing subject. Its decision to latch onto the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s initial analysis, which showed the rebate exceeded the carbon taxes paid by eight out of 10 households, also seemed like a dangerous limb to step out on. The PBO duly chopped it off with a subsequent report that included modelled economic impacts of the tax swinging the balance decisively in the other direction.
But those are mere foot faults compared to this move, which might be the biggest unforced political error we’ve seen in a long time. “Our government is delivering relief to Atlantic Canadians, rural Canadians, and people across the country who use home heating oil,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tweeted. Said relief, though, was from a policy her own government implemented — one that just came into effect in Atlantic Canada earlier this year.
