News release from Project Confederation

Last week, Justin Trudeau made obvious what many of us have been saying for years – his carbon tax is all about politics, not the environment.

His Liberal government made a deeply political decision to exempt home heating oils from Canada’s carbon tax, right after promising they would never do such a thing.

“There will be no carve-out for a province. How fair would it be for the rest of the federation if we started carving out exceptions for provinces?”

Those were the words of Environment Minister, Steven Guilbeault, just a few weeks ago.

But with his poll numbers in freefall, and pressure mounting internally from his own Liberal MPs, the Prime Minister has abandoned his own signature policy.

If you already agree with us that the Carbon Tax
should be repealed, click here to sign our petition.
Otherwise, read on for more on why we think this is important.

The decision is outrageous for two reasons:

First – the vast, vast majority of Canadians who use home heating oil to heat their homes live in the Atlantic provinces – an area of the country where the Liberals are particularly struggling in the polls and have a large number of seats to defend in the next election

Second – home heating oil is actually worse for the environment than natural gas!

So, for those keeping track at home – the government announced they were giving a tax exemption to one (and only one) part of the country – the part where they desperately need more votes, and the fuel they’re exempting is worse for the environment than the fuel they’re refusing to exempt.

This surely must be one of the most blatant attempts at vote-buying we’ve ever seen, from a government looking to bribe its way back into power come election time.

Now, normally, this would be the point where the government would come out and deny that the decision was in any way political, make up some silly excuse that most of us can see right through, but which they plan to repeat often enough that some people will forget what they did.

Instead, though, they actually admitted it.

Heck, they went so far as to brag about it!

Rural Economic Development Minister, Gudie Hutchings, went on CTV’s Question Period to put the matter to rest but, instead, exposed the partisan regional motivations behind the move.

“I can tell you, the (Liberal) Atlantic caucus was vocal with what they’ve heard from their constituents, and perhaps they need to elect more Liberals in the Prairies so that we can have that conversation, as well.”

Unbelievable.

Can you imagine if a conservative federal government exempted Albertans (and only Albertans) from having to pay federal GST?

Or if a federal NDP/Bloc government gave Quebecers (and only Quebecers) an exemption from having to pay federal income tax?

The resentment this will cause in different parts of the country is incalculable.

It underscores the Liberals’ complete disregard for the Supreme Court as well.

One of the main arguments the Liberals used at the Supreme Court when attempting to defend the carbon tax as constitutional was that it was a non-political, neutral charge, applied fairly and evenly right across the country.

Clearly, that’s no longer true.

The response from the Alberta and Saskatchewan governments has been very strong.

In Saskatchewan, Scott Moe announced that SaskEnergy – the Crown corporation that supplies natural gas in the province – will no longer be collecting the carbon tax on home heating bills, nor remitting the carbon tax to the federal government.

“This is the most divisive federal government Canada has ever had. It’s not about climate change, not about fairness or about families, it’s only about votes.”

In Alberta, the Legislative Assembly opened with the Throne Speech, which put the problem in plain terms:

“There are powerful forces in our country, including in the federal government, that believe our province must fundamentally alter our provincial economy and way of life.”

Even the Alberta NDP – typically a doormat for the federal government – spoke out against the decision.

NDP leader Rachel Notley agreed that the change was unfair to the west, saying:

“If Atlantic Canada is being given a break on their home-heating bills, Alberta should be too.”

You know it’s going badly for the federal government when even Rachel Notley’s NDP is joining the UCP in criticizing them.

The carbon tax has always been unfair to western Canadians.

It is an extra cost at every level of the economy, from the cost of heating our homes to the cost of driving our vehicles, and it is a major tax on the cost of the goods and services we all consume.

And that cost is disproportionately felt by western Canadians because we naturally use more energy per capita, thanks to our geography and climate.

Instead of another carve-out, though, the solution is simpler.

It’s time to do what should have been done years ago.

It’s time to Repeal The Carbon Tax.

If you agree, please sign this petition calling on the federal government to Repeal The Carbon Tax immediately:

Over the past four years, we have been relentless in our efforts to achieve a fairer Constitutional deal.

To see Ottawa so blatantly applying regional bias to its environmental onslaught is clear evidence that we need to be stronger and we need to be louder.

Sure, we have some big wins – the Supreme Court’s decision that the Impact Assessment Act was unconstitutional being one – but we clearly have more work to do.

So please, sign this petition and join our effort to keep the federal government in its lane, and then pass this email on to every Canadian you know.

Together, we can make a difference.

Regards,

Josh Andrus
Executive Director
Project Confederation

From Josh Andrus, Executive Director of Project Confederation

Look what we discovered about the “Just Transition”…

You might remember, not so long ago, that federal Natural Resources Minister, Jonathan Wilkinson, announced that the federal Liberal government would soon be rolling out its plan for a “Just Transition.”

This is the “Just Transition” plan that the federal NDP insisted be included in the “confidence and supply agreement” that is currently propping up Justin Trudeau’s minority government.

Then, an internal government memo was made public, suggesting that hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost in this “transition” – particularly in western Canada.

Project Confederation immediately sprung to action, investigating the proposed policies and launching a petition against the plan, which has now received more than 13,000 signatures.

(If you haven’t signed the petition yet, you can do so here)

As news spread, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe spoke out strongly against the plan.

But one politician was suspiciously quiet – the Alberta NDP leader, Rachel Notley.

We thought Albertans, and Canadians, deserved to know whether someone running to be Premier of Alberta supported the shutting down of Alberta and western Canada’s largest industry.

And so we pushed hard for Rachel Notley to answer the question – does she support the “Just Transition” idea?

But, as time went on, Notley’s silence became more and more deafening.

Eventually, her silence became so deafening that even some in the media began to question whether or not she truly disagreed with the plan.

Hours turned into days, and days turned into weeks – literally!

Two full weeks after Wilkinson’s announcement, Rachel Notley finally broke her silence, calling on Ottawa to “put the brakes on” the “Just Transition”.

But, “put the brakes on” sounded a lot more like “wait until after the Alberta election” than “ditch it entirely” to us.

So we decided to do some more digging.

Well, after some excellent work by our research team, we think we now know why it took so long for Rachel Notley to oppose the “Just Transition.”

It turns out that, rather than just being some federal NDP idea that she’s now distanced her provincial party from, the “Just Transition” was actually a huge part of her NDP government’s plans.

Insert flashback music here.

It’s November 2015, the newly minted NDP government are celebrating a big election win, and are moving forward with their climate change strategy.

(You know, the one they accidentally forgot to mention that they were going to implement if they won).

New Alberta Minister of Environment and Parks, Shannon Phillips, commissions a blue-ribbon report by a team of high-profile academics, to help the NDP figure out exactly how to fulfil their campaign promise (sorry, their campaign omission).

Several months later, the “Climate Leadership Report” is released, setting out the government’s vision for climate policy and – guess what?

The “Just Transition” is a key part of the NDP’s Climate Leadership Report!

Yep, that’s right – forget not knowing what the “Just Transition” is, and claiming not to support the federal government’s plan.

In reality, it was Rachel Notley’s government who wrote the policy in the first place, and then made it a critical part of their entire environmental policy agenda.

Here are some extracts from the report…

In a section discussing mitigating the impacts of carbon pricing on low- and middle-income Albertans, the NDP said they would “support a sound and just transition for labour and communities…”

Later in the report, the authors highlight a quote from their friends at the Alberta Federation of Labour.

This quote is really just one gigantic contradiction, given the government is literally legislating their employment out of existence:

Next, the report talks about what the workers who lose their jobs might need to do as part of this “transition” – it notes that they may need assistance with “relocation”:

Oh, sorry, did the government legislate away your job?

Not to worry, we’ll “fix” it for you by helping you walk away from your entire life and move somewhere else.

Remember how Rachel Notley said Albertans might have to move to BC to find work while she was Premier?

Yeah, we’d prefer Albertans could find work here in Alberta, thanks.

*****

Here’s the thing…

Not only did the Alberta NDP support the concept of a federal “Just Transition” when they were in government, they were also actively implementing their own “Just Transition” – 8 years earlier than the federal government!

And yet now they claim to not support the idea at all?

No wonder it took so long for Rachel Notley to answer the question.

She was probably just surprised that no one in the media had dug up her own support of “Just Transition” legislation from years before, and was wondering if she could get away with pretending she hadn’t.

Well, we’re not surprised no one in the media bothered looking.

But, we did look, and thank goodness we did!

Thank you to our researchers who dug up this document, which I’m sure the NDP would have preferred we’d not found.

If you’d like to help us do even more research like this, please click here to make a donation to our work.

Otherwise, if you haven’t signed the No Unjust Transition petition yet, please click here to do so now.

Rachel Notley’s claim to now be opposed to the exact thing that she herself implemented is not credible.

She can run from it, but she can’t hide.

Her environmental policies put Alberta into one of its deepest recessions ever.

And we can’t afford to repeat those mistakes.

Sincerely,

Josh Andrus
Executive Director
Project Confederation