Poilievre promises to kill carbon ‘tax’ as Conservatives weigh climate plans
Global News
``I'm the only candidate for prime minister that will protect people's paycheques and make life more affordable by cancelling the carbon tax,'' Pierre Poilievre said in Regina.
A group of longtime Conservatives is advocating for leadership hopefuls to develop credible climate plans at the same time as cancelling the federal carbon price has emerged as one of the first promises out of the race.
Ken Boessenkool, executive director of the recently launched Conservatives for Clean Growth, said Friday it doesn’t view a consumer carbon price as the make-or-break feature of a good plan to tackle climate change.
The group announced itself shortly after the Tories began their search for a new leader and Candice Bergen, its interim leader, shelved the party’s support for the carbon price policy introduced by former leader Erin O’Toole. Bergen has left the matter to be decided in the leadership race.
On its website, Conservatives for Clean Growth defines itself as believing in the need for the party to have a “stable, credible, long-term” plan to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
“There are many ways to get there,” said Boessenkool, who previously served as an adviser to different conservative leaders, including former prime minister Stephen Harper. “There’s incentives or smart regulations, relying on technology.”
Pierre Poilievre, the high-profile Ottawa-area MP who was the first to declare his candidacy last month, travelled to Saskatchewan this week to release his energy policies, which began with a promise to cancel the Liberal government’s consumer carbon price.
Calling it a “tax,” Poilievre framed the issue to be one around cost and instead pledged that his environmental plan would focus on technology.
“I’m the only candidate for prime minister that will protect people’s paycheques and make life more affordable by cancelling the carbon tax,” he said in Regina on Friday.