Before we get to everything happening at The Narwhal this week, I wanted to share an incredible update: we asked for 145 readers to sign up as members by the end of this month — and 140 of you stepped up! That means we’re only five members away from reaching our target! I hope you’ll consider becoming a member today so we can keep bringing you dogged environmental reporting you won’t find anywhere else.
 

We’ve just gotta ask: what on earth is going on with the carbon “tax” in Canada?

The Liberal government is facing a non-confidence motion vote next week, which Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has largely hinged on its price on carbon for consumers. The federal New Democrats also pulled support for the Liberals’ carbon pricing system, which is meant to reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions. Then came news of B.C. NDP Premier David Eby saying he’d ditch the province’s consumer carbon tax if federal rules change.

Everything is getting more expensive — so it somewhat makes sense that another perceived tax on consumers is stoking discussion and confusion, whether that’s over how rebates work or why the policy was created in the first place.

It’s all … a bit of a mess. So, I asked three Narwhal reporters — from Ontario, B.C. and the Prairies — to help readers make some sense of how this climate measure became so deeply politicized.
 

In B.C., the carbon tax conversation is happening as the province heads toward an October election. The governing BC NDP, in power since 2017, is struggling to fend off the BC Conservatives, a party that recently rose rapidly out of the political dust and is now neck-and-neck with the NDP in the polls.

B.C. has had a carbon pricing regime for 16 years and has long been pointed to as a world leader on this front, but Conservative Party Leader John Rustad has promised to get rid of it if his party forms government (although he has admitted that as long as the federal regime is still in place, B.C. will be subject to carbon pricing). Last week, NDP Premier David Eby pledged that his government would get rid of the consumer carbon tax, which British Columbians pay on fossil fuels, if the federal regime is removed. Eby’s about-face on the policy, which he was still defending in April, looks like a bid to block the Conservatives from making the carbon tax an election issue. (I’ll break things down during my next CBC Power & Politics appearance on Friday at 3:30 p.m. PT.)

— Shannon Waters, B.C. politics and environment reporter 


Ontario wouldn’t have a “carbon tax” if it weren’t for Doug Ford.

In June 2018, the Progressive Conservative leader’s first move in office was to end the cap-and-trade program, which forced industrial polluters in Ontario, Quebec and California to pay for emissions. Dismantling it created a void of climate policy — one Ottawa filled with a carbon levy. 

Alongside the right-leaning governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan, the Ford government fought and lost at the Supreme Court. But that hasn’t hushed Ford’s opposition, even though his government has quietly implemented its own industrial carbon price. In recent months, Ford has labelled his Liberal opponent, Bonnie Crombie, the “queen of the carbon tax” (even though she’s skirted the policy) and implemented legislation that requires future governments to carry out a referendum on carbon pricing. As Ontario readies for an election, the carbon tax chatter will likely just get louder and more confusing. But I’ll make sense of it all for Narwhal readers.

— Fatima Syed, Ontario reporter


Even though Alberta was the first jurisdiction in North America to introduce a price on carbon, the province and its neighbour Saskatchewan have long been a hotbed of anti-carbon tax sentiment. But the reality is more nuanced — many oil and gas executives here welcome a levy, and politicians tread a fine line between condemnation of a consumer carbon price and relative silence on an industrial charge.

Both provinces, along with Ontario, fought the personal carbon price to the Supreme Court of Canada and lost. Since then, the United Conservative Party in Alberta has been comparatively quiet — but still opposed — after the noisy premiership of Jason Kenney. 

Meanwhile the Saskatchewan Party government has stopped collecting the charge on home heating altogether — in defiance of federal laws. As an election looms in Saskatchewan, even the opposition NDP have made it clear it doesn’t support the federal levy, ensuring choppy waters for a carbon price no matter the outcome.

— Drew Anderson, Prairies reporter


We’ll make sense of this political chatter as and when it unfolds. Until then, check out our wee explainer on the carbon tax — and send us your questions so we can try to answer them in our reporting. 

Take care and stay curious,

Karan Saxena
Audience engagement editor

This week in The Narwhal