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.
I think you hit the nail on the head. More and more I think this is exactly the problem. Carbon taxes especially become a problem when the individual has no good alternatives to switch to. One obvious example is commuting by car and public transit. People should feel encouraged to switch to public transit by the policy. Except public transit is so inadequate in most of Canada that it’s simply not a realistic option for many if not most. If you’re an individual in that situation, you’d feel the carbon tax is just punishing you with no action you can take to make it stop. The only lever left to them is the democratic lever and they’re gonna pull it to make it stop. I think you’re right that the focus of the carbon tax should be on industry alone. Companies are much more likely to have ability to do something about their carbon output as well as to be able to act rationally on price signals. In order to address individual-level emissions, other policies should be employed. Create alternative first, then make them irresistible. Build massive public transit then make it cheap to use, procure large supply of heat pumps then subsidise exchanging gas furnaces for them.
Oh and when economists call it the most efficient way to curb climate change, they are talking specifically about economic efficiency. Its political externalities aren’t factored in even if they are large enough to kill the policy itself.
If commuters don’t have an alternative to travel, then policy makers should mandate that the commuters carbon tax be paid for by their company