BC NDP leader David Eby announced on Thursday that his government would scrap the carbon tax for consumers if the federal government dropped the requirement for the provinces to keep the tax in place.
“It’s a big pivot for British Columbia, for the province which led in establishing carbon pricing in Canada back in 2008,” Kathryn Harrison, a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia said.
“That was under the Liberals for the B.C. government, which was the only province, Canada-wide, that backed the federal government up at the Supreme Court of Canada, arguing that the federal backstop was necessary and constitutional and they won.”
A few months ago, Eby dismissed a letter from federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre asking him to help halt a federal carbon price increase as a “baloney factory” campaign tactic.
“I don’t live in the Pierre Poilievre campaign office and baloney factory,” said Eby on March 16. “I live in B.C., am the premier, and decisions have consequences. The fact we face is that if we followed Mr. Poilievre’s suggestion there would be less money returned to British Columbians after April 1 than there would be if the federal government administered this increase directly.”
On Friday morning, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the NDP is caving to political pressure from Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
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Trudeau said he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
Harrison said she thinks voter priorities are changing.
“Five years ago, climate was one of the top issues on voters’ minds, and now polling is showing it’s kind of a distant fifth,” she said.
“And things like affordability and the cost of housing have really taken over. And that has allowed the federal conservatives, especially after the war in Ukraine caused a big surge in energy prices, to really capitalize on that change in public concerns with an axe attacks campaign.”
Harrison said this helped the BC Conservatives emerge as a competitive force in the upcoming election.
“How that will play out in the election remains to be seen because I expect there will still be very large differences on climate change between the NDP and the Conservatives,” she added.
“The carbon tax is one of many policies.”
Harrison also said there is a risk that Eby could be seen as flip-flopping on policies, which could undermine his credibility, but that remains to be seen.
“Honestly, it makes me a bit sad because the rise of the Axe the Tax campaign and the shift in public views on the carbon tax, and especially in British Columbia, is to a large degree based on misinformation, a misunderstanding of the degree to which the carbon tax actually is the cause of the change in prices that we’ve seen, the inflation that we’ve seen,” she added.
“It’s not mostly about the carbon tax, but the fact is that’s what voters have been told. That’s what they’ve glommed on. And I think we are seeing the government respond to that.”
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