By Chris Beach

Northern View

The Northern View: The carbon tax about-face

Nov 10, 2023 | 2:32 PM

By now you’ve probably heard about the Liberal government carving out the carbon tax mostly on home heating in Atlantic Canada. As really the flagship policy for the government since 2015, it was surprising to hear Trudeau announce that he would be walking back the tax basically in one region while leaving it up to Canadians in the rest of the country to keep paying it.

I guess if you live on the East Coast, fighting climate change is no longer your concern. Then again, Atlantic Canada does have a lot of Liberal MPs who are terrified they’re going to get wiped out come the next federal election.

Indeed, the icing on the cake following the Prime Minister’s about-face was that one of his own Cabinet ministers freely admitted on TV that, if only the Prairies had elected more Liberal MPs, they too might have gotten a break from the carbon tax.

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Whatever happened to making decisions based on good public policy in the interests of all Canadians? Forget about that, let’s just dole out the goodies to pockets of people in different parts of the country because some of them might vote for us.

Affordability issues in British Columbia? Not sure if those exist, but they might in Quebec because there are a lot more Liberal MPs there then there are in BC.

Is there anyone left in the country who’s going to believe Trudeau now when he says he governs for all Canadians?

While his judgement is clearly in question, how could his advisors and the Liberal caucus not know this would open up a whole big can of worms across the nation?

Judging from the looks on the faces of Liberal MPs in Parliament last week as Trudeau attempted to defend the decision, maybe they did know?

Because how can you honestly blame any provincial premier now for threatening to opt out of the carbon tax?

If this is the start of desperate half-baked measures from the Prime Minister’s office as we cruise to the next election, things are going to get very interesting as Trudeau’s would-be successors start to sharpen their knives and ponder their next moves.

I’m Chris Beach and this is the Northern View.

Editors note: The views expressed in this column do not necessarily represent the views of Pattison Media.