Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is under siege: low in the polls, juggling foreign relation spat with India with investigations over China’s influence over high echelons of the government.
To top it all, his climate alarmist policies are getting widely rejected, leading Trudeau to try and modify his highly unpopular ‘Carbon Tax’.
But that seems far from enough. So much so, that Canada’s Provincial Premiers presented a rare unified front in rebuke of this tax.
Gathered at Halifax, they unanimously called for action on ‘the affordability crisis’ facing Canadians, including the financial struggles caused by carbon pricing across the country.
Chair of the Council of the Federation, Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston hosted his provincial and territorial counterparts. He says that the group is calling on Ottawa for fairness.
Global News reported:
“’One immediate action that we discussed as premiers that can be taken to address the affordability challenges is to ensure that all Canadians are treated fairly by the federal government when it comes to the federal carbon tax and home heating’, [Tim Houston] told reporters at a press conference following their meeting.
Controversy erupted from coast to coast late last month when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that there would be a three-year pause on the carbon price for home-heating oil, which is widely used in Atlantic Canada and led to widespread criticism from premiers elsewhere in the country, calling it unfair.
The reaction has varied from province to province, with Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe saying his province would no longer collect carbon pricing starting in January if an expansion on the pause to all types of home heating is not made. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has said carbon pricing should be eliminated across the country.”
The premiers called on Trudeau to hold a First Ministers meeting in person, something they said has not happened since December 2018 ‘despite repeated requests from premiers’.
Atlantic premiers questioned the very effectiveness of the plan.
“’I think it’s time to have a real analytical approach to the effect of the carbon tax and is it actually achieving what it was intended to do? And I would say, no, it’s not’, New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs said.”
The premiers primarily rallied around the idea that Ottawa’s move to change the ‘Carbon Tax’ treated Canadians differently, at a time when the entire country is struggling with an affordability crisis.
Toronto Sun reported:
“Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said carbon pricing is “not a silver bullet when it comes to climate change” and he stressed that the pause for heating oil users should be extended to other fuels to make life more affordable for more Canadians. “During this inflationary moment right now, people are suffering,” said Kinew, whose NDP government was elected in Manitoba just over a month ago.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said natural gas should be treated like a cleaner fuel, especially when compared with coal, wood and dung.
‘We should be exporting more of our cleaner fuel to reduce global emissions and not punishing our customers here at home’, she said. ‘It’s not our customers’ fault that the alternatives are not available to them’.”
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs also called for the carbon pricing pause should be extended to all types of heating fuel, as he repeated his opposition to carbon pricing in general.
“Nova Scotia Premier [and host] Tim Houston agreed. ‘There are much more effective ways to protect the planet’, he said. ‘I think they should get rid of the carbon tax and move on to working with us on other initiatives’.”
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