THUNDER BAY — The five candidates for Thunder Bay–Rainy River’s seat in the House of Commons all seem to agree nixing the consumer carbon tax was a good move, though for different reasons. At least one of them says the program was addressing a problem that isn’t real.
The consumer carbon tax, part of a federal program of carbon pricing, was unpopular and Liberal Leader Mark Carney reduced it to zero soon after becoming prime minister. The industrial carbon tax remains.
Newswatch asked candidates for their positions on the carbon tax and how to address climate change.
Conservative candidate Brendan Hyatt said his party has always said the carbon tax should “go away for consumers, but also business and industry. It’s a punitive tax and we need to get rid of it.”
To address the climate crisis, he said, “we have to leverage technologies in Canadian ingenuity to actually remove carbon from the environment, plant trees, build on the North.
“And really, Canadians are at the cusp of technology and building practices that take the carbon and green our society and make it a better viable future for all of our citizens.”
Climate change carries economic costs and is “going to affect future generations, our kids and grandchildren… (so) it’s in our economic best interest to be addressing it,” said Liberal incumbent Marcus Powlowski.
Economists like carbon pricing, he said, but “there’s also a realization that the carbon tax is politically unpopular, and I think that was the reason that we’ve changed it.”
Some form of carbon pricing for “big polluters” in industry will remain, “and I think that’s only fair,” he said.
Powlowski said industrial carbon pricing is fair because greenhouse gas emissions are “going to adversely affect (all of) us.”
The New Democratic Party of Canada’s website says "the impacts of accelerating climate change are all around us – and Canadians are paying the price.”
Yuk-Sem Won, the NDP’s candidate in Thunder Bay–Rainy River, supported that viewpoint in her interview.
“We support the removal of the consumer portion of it, but the carbon tax really is about addressing the climate crisis, and we cannot let the big polluters off the hook,” she said.
“We must keep the industrial carbon tax in order to ensure that they are held accountable and that that money is reinvested into a greener, cleaner economy because we have no Planet B.”
The consumer carbon tax “was a functional tool to help reduce carbon, but very unpopular,” Green candidate Eric Arner said.
“And the studies that looked at it said, yes, the folks in lower socioeconomic levels were actually benefiting from the money they were getting back (in rebates),” he added.
“But it’s hard to feel that when you’re going to the pump and you’re working paycheck to paycheck.
“So I think Mark Carney did the right thing when he cancelled the very unpopular tax, even though there were some benefits to it.
“So now we just look for new opportunities, new ways that we can reduce carbon emissions but also not hurt the pocketbooks of regular individuals.”
People’s Party candidate Sabrina Ree was emphatic in her opposition to carbon pricing.
“The People’s Party of Canada, and myself if elected as MP, would wholeheartedly vote not to support any carbon tax,” she said.
“The carbon tax shouldn’t have been implemented in the first place.”
“This is my take on the climate crisis: There is no climate emergency,” Ree told Newswatch.
The planet has always had periods of heating and cooling, she said.
“We need to obviously be responsible with the way we recycle and that sort of thing, but there is no climate emergency and (human-caused global warming) has never been proven.”
Election day is Monday, April 28.
