QUESTION PERIOD — Environment and Climate Change
Carbon Tax
June 13, 2024
Congratulations to all of the pages.
Leader, in May the Trudeau government gave the Parliamentary Budget Officer secret information about the Prime Minister’s carbon tax and then put him under a gag order not to reveal it.
Earlier today, this information was revealed to the CBC. A CBC report claims that the Trudeau government’s data shows that the carbon tax costs Canada’s economy $20 billion. This would work out to approximately $1,200 in lost gross domestic product, or GDP, for every Canadian household. Leader, is the CBC report correct? If so, how can this Trudeau government continue to claim that the carbon tax is revenue neutral?
Thank you for your question. Indeed, the CBC report is correct, though your statement of the facts is very selective and incomplete.
What the report reveals, among other things, is the enormous cost to the economy if climate change is not acted upon.
The numbers and figures that the government commissioned were not a complete analysis of this. It did not include the $11 billion a year of rebates going back into the economy. It did not include the billions and billions of dollars more of no action on carbon pricing.
When all of the facts are taken into account, what it does reveal is that the price on pollution is an effective measure of the impact.
On April 1, despite the ongoing affordability crisis hurting families right across Canada, this NDP-Trudeau government hiked the carbon tax by 23%, leader. Was the report on the economic cost produced before this incompetent government pushed ahead with raising the carbon tax, or after?
Will Canadians get to see the full report and not just the CBC report?
Again, the figures to which you are referring were not a complete analysis of the costs and benefits of carbon pricing. That is why it is not correct to zero in on only one aspect of the figures.
As I said, the figures did not include the rebates to Canadians, their injection into the economy nor the investments that are being made as a result of our transition to a cleaner, more sustainable economy.
