Poilievre silent on 'axing the tax' for industries

Tory leader's stance a question mark in his campaign

- ALEX BALLINGALL AND STEPHANIE LEVITZ

Numerous political and business insiders say Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's office is devoting time and resources to thinking through their environmental policy.

He would repeal incoming federal electricity regulations. He would scrap Liberal clean fuel standards. And, yes, he wants to “axe the tax.” But it’s less clear where Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre stands on another major piece of federal climate policy: the national requirement for industrial carbon pricing.

It’s a significant question mark in his campaign against the federal levy on consumer fuel, which Poilievre denounces as a tax that unfairly imposes costs on Canadians. That levy, formally called a “fuel charge” on things like gasoline, is just one piece of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon pricing regime. The other part is the legislated need for all provinces and territories to have an industrial pricing system for sectors like oil and gas, cement and steel production, or adopt one that was made in Ottawa.

The murkiness has some industry players, lobbyists and climate policy advocates trying to decipher what the Conservative leader thinks, with some urging him to come clean so businesses don’t delay spending that will be crucial to meeting Canada’s emissions reduction commitments.

Numerous political and business insiders say Poilievre’s office is devoting time and resources to thinking through their environmental policy, and despite his ongoing criticisms of the lobbying sector, remain open to hearing from industry leaders about how existing programs and policies help or hurt their sector’s own environmental ambitions.