Revisions to PBO's carbon tax analysis will 'vindicate' government, minister predicts
CBC
Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault says the Conservatives' attack on the federal carbon tax and its associated rebates is based on a "false premise" pulled from a "flawed" Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) study.
On Wednesday — after the PBO acknowledged it had made a error in its economic analysis of carbon pricing and promised to correct the record — Guilbeault called on the Conservatives to abandon their line of attack.
"To their credit, they (the PBO) made a mistake and they recognized it," Guilbeault said, adding that he hopes the "Conservative Party will also recognize" that their "entire campaign" against the tax is based on unreliable information.
Guilbeault went further in an interview with CBC News, calling the PBO analysis "flawed" and insisting that the Conservatives have a moral responsibility to correct the record as well.
"Now that the PBO has come out and said, 'We made a mistake,' I hope that the Conservative Party of Canada will say, 'We have been using flawed analysis from the PBO. Therefore, what we have been saying about carbon pricing is not true,'" Guilbeault said.
"I know it won't happen, but it should. That's what they should do if they had any moral authority on this."
The PBO, meanwhile, says that while it intends to publish a corrected version, its original conclusion — that carbon pricing will have a net negative impact on the economy — probably won't change.
"It is not something that should or will alter the conclusions of the report because the industrial emissions are exempt at 80 per cent," Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux told CBC's Power and Politics on Wednesday. "For big emitters, it is only the 20 per cent that is subject.
"So overall, the economic impact will still be negative."
Guilbeault said he still thinks the revised report will "vindicate" the government's policy.
"I think it will show that we have been right all along," he said. "It will vindicate our analysis and the analysis of independent experts."
A Conservative spokesperson pointed out that Giroux said the bottom line of the analysis likely won't change.
"Only the deeply out-of-touch Trudeau Liberals and their NDP coalition partners think adding a perpetually-increasing tax on the essentials of everyday life somehow makes Canadians richer," said Sebastian Skamski, director of media relations in Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's office.
The federal carbon tax and its rebates have become a political lightning rod. Since becoming Conservative leader in 2022, Poilievre has vowed repeatedly that a government led by him would "axe the tax." It's not clear if Poilievre would also cancel the rebates some Canadians receive.
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