Liberals backpedal on carbon tax

For three years now, the national carbon tax has been one of the signature policies of the Trudeau government in Ottawa. However, Saskatchewan has continued to be a holdout and is refusing to implement the federally imposed tax.

More recently, the new Ontario government also announced its intentions to reject what is often calls the “Trudeau carbon tax” and has created the potential for a significant legal challenge.

This week, the office of Environment Minister Catherine McKenna announced that the Liberals will be doing some back peddling on the carbon tax.

The government announced plans that, as the CBC reported, will reduce the carbon tax so “large polluters will be taxed on 10-20 per cent of emissions rather than 30 per cent as was previously planned.”

One well-known Canadian columnist observed these changes amount to “a carbon tax that taxes you less the more carbon you emit.”

Why are the Liberals making this change to reduce carbon tax on large-scale polluters?

In short, over concerns related to competitiveness.

In my view, these concerns are valid.

For example, the United States does not have a national carbon tax, nor do many of Canada’s largest trading partners.

I believe this is a major policy change as it is the first time the Trudeau government has publicly admitted that the costs of a carbon tax can place Canadian industry at a competitive disadvantage compared to other countries that have no carbon tax whatsoever.

The bigger problem is that these carbon tax changes announced by the Liberals only apply to large-scale polluters; they do not apply to small business owners or hardworking Canadian families.

For the average family and small business owner, there are no exemptions.

In some provinces, there are rebates for certain citizens. However, they are not applied in the same manner as an across-the-board exemption that would benefit all taxpayers.

I believe this creates a challenge and also leads to my question for this week: As the Liberals have now admitted that the carbon tax makes heavily polluting industry less competitive. would it not also be fair to recognize the adverse impacts on small business owners and Canadian families?

Dan Albas is the Conservative member of Parliament for Central OkanaganSimilkameen-Nicola. Email: Dan.Albas@parl.gc.ca. Phone: 1-800-665-8711.