QUESTION PERIOD — Environment and Climate Change
Carbon Tax
April 18, 2024
Senator Gold, two days after your government’s disastrous budget that didn’t include one measure to make life more affordable for hard-working Canadians, and just over two weeks after your government brought in another hike to the carbon tax, Canadians awoke this morning to a 14‑cent-per-litre jump at the pumps. Some people are paying more than $1.85 for a litre of gas today. It is not just gas. Everything is more expensive today because of your government’s irrational ideological stubbornness to keep the carbon tax.
You had the opportunity to spike the hike on April 1, and you didn’t. You had the opportunity to axe the tax on Tuesday, and you didn’t. Admit it, Senator Gold: Justin Trudeau is just not worth the cost for hard-working Canadians, and only Pierre Poilievre and common-sense Conservatives will bring Canada back from the brink.
Congratulations on managing to jam more than three or perhaps more of your talking points into a question.
This government is doing a great deal to assist Canadians in affordability. The budget includes many measures, as I am sure you are all aware.
It is also the case that the government believes — along with reputable economists and other non-partisan figures — that the price on pollution is a market-driven, sensible, prudent, most effective and least costly way to address climate change.
The existential question is whether or not one believes that fighting climate change and saving the planet for the benefit of our children and our grandchildren is actually worth the cost. This government believes it is worth the effort. It is going to stand by that. It is asking Canadians to understand that that’s where the government is coming from, and that’s where the government shall remain.
Canadians are all excited about the next Pierre Poilievre government, which will bring relief coast to coast to coast.
Senator Gold, you can blame it on as many external factors as you want, but your government chose to make it even worse by adding fuel to the fire by increasing the carbon tax. None of these external factors are unknown, and yet Justin Trudeau chose to go ahead and add to them with the carbon tax over and over again. But the good news is that Pierre Poilievre and his common-sense Conservatives will fix it. Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh have broken it. Give up on this carbon tax. Give Canadians some relief.
There’s policy, there’s principle and there’s politics. The right thing to do — and this government is committed to doing it — is to address climate change with a broad range of policy instruments, only one of which is the price on pollution.
At least he has a plan.
