O'TOOLE CARBON TAX
Plan targets big emitters
• Conservative leader Erin O'toole will release a climate platform on Thursday that proposes to keep taxing carbon emissions by large industrial emitters but scrap the federal tax on consumer fuels, a source has told the National Post.
The plan will also include a specific target and date for reducing Canada's greenhouse gas emissions. O'toole has said the lack of a clear target and timeline was a major problem with the plan put forward by the Conservatives in the 2019 election under Andrew Scheer's leadership.
The source did not say what exactly that target will be, though O'toole has previously said his plan will at least meet the Paris Agreement target, which is to reduce national emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. Canada has also pledged to get to net-zero emissions by 2050.
“You're going to see a very detailed plan ... that will, I think, make our commitments probably faster than Mr. Trudeau,” O'toole told the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade in February.
The release of the climate plan, scheduled for Thursday morning in Ottawa, is a major test for O'toole's leadership. He has repeatedly promised his plan will be more robust than Scheer's, arguing that a lack of credibility on the environment badly hurt the Conservatives in the 2019 election.
However, there is deep opposition to a federal carbon tax within the party's membership base, meaning O'toole has had to craft a plan that doesn't rely on a fuel charge as its centrepiece.
The source told the Post the plan “will help Canadians achieve personal financial security by repealing Justin Trudeau's carbon tax, and instead focus on the largest emitters and not Canadian families.”
The federal carbon pricing law brought in by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has two main parts: a fuel charge that consumers and smaller businesses pay (for example, at the gas pumps and for home heating), and a separate output-based pricing regime for large industrial emitters. The law establishes a minimum standard, and imposes the federal program if a provincial program doesn't meet the standard.
The two parts of the federal law can function independently. Alberta, for example, currently has the federal fuel charge imposed on it, but has its own industrial pricing regime that meets the federal standard.
Scheer's plan had proposed to scrap both parts of the federal law. It would have replaced the industrial pricing regime with a program that set emissions caps for large emitters, and required companies that exceeded the cap to make investments in clean technology and research.
O'toole's plan effectively scraps the fuel charge while keeping the industrial pricing regime, though the source did not say whether the design of the industrial pricing program or the level of pricing would change.
The source did not provide more detail about what else in the plan will get Canada to its reduction target, given the elimination of the fuel charge. The Liberals promised in the 2019 election to exceed Canada's Paris Agreement target, and announced in December the government would raise the fuel charge from $50 per tonne in 2022 to $170 a tonne by 2030.
O'toole's 2020 leadership platform had promised a focus on large emitters, saying his plan would forge “a national industrial regulatory and pricing regime across the country.”
The leadership platform also said O'toole's plan “avoids focus on carbon only, and instead is scoped to capture ALL greenhouse gases, many of which are more powerful than carbon dioxide.”
(TAX CHANGES) TO CREATE CONFIDENCE
IN THE RESOURCE SECTOR.
It promised to simplify the tax code “to create confidence in the resource sector and support its actions toward emission reduction,” and to “proactively invest in mitigation programs and critical infrastructure to protect communities threatened by Climate Change on an ongoing basis.”
The leadership platform promised to help lower global emissions by focusing on exporting modern nuclear technology, helping countries transition from coal to natural gas, and working with the oil and gas industry to get to net-zero emissions.