As prime minister Justin Trudeau trails in polls, opposition seek to persuade voters environmental policy is a burden
Mass hunger and malnutrition. A looming nuclear winter. An existential threat to the Canadian way of life. For months, the country’s Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has issued dire and increasingly apocalyptic warnings about the future. The culprit? A federal carbon levy meant to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
In the House of Commons this month, the Tory leader said there was only one way to avoid the devastating crisis: embattled prime minister Justin Trudeau must “call a ‘carbon tax’ election”.
Hailed as a global model of progressive environmental policy, Canada’s carbon tax has reduced emissions and put money in the pockets of Canadians. The levy, endorsed by conservative and progressive economists, has survived multiple federal elections and a supreme court challenge. But this time, a persistent cost-of-living crisis and a pugnacious Conservative leader running on a populist message have thrust the country’s carbon tax once more into the spotlight, calling into question whether it will survive another national vote.
Right, so the title is false. You can’t say something is popular when most people who have some opinion on it have a negative one.
Ehhhhhh, I dunno. I mean, it’d be weird to argue donald trump isn’t popular, despite thr majority of folks having an unfavourable opinion of him.
I also think this is sort of like Obamacare which was famously incredibly popular with folks, including Republican voters, as long as you didn’t use the word Obamacare. If you loom at that abacus polling I linked earlier, you’ll note that most folks don’t even seem to realize the cheques they’ve received have anything to do with the carbon tax and many don’t understand they’re getting more than they pay in…
I’m not arguing that people know what it is or are aware of the actual implications.
Okay but it does seem odd to claim it’s unpopular when the unpopularity is based on misunderstanding. (Also, would you say trump is unpopular despite his legions of rabid
marksfans?)Let’s go back to Obamacare, which when polled absent the name, was wildly popular. But Obamacare with the name was unpopular.
So, would you say Obamacare was popular, unpopular or complicated? And do you see how this applies to the Carbon Tax, which suffers from the same issue?