ONTARIO – The federal Liberal government’s consumer carbon tax seems destined to be axed, whether by the Conservatives or by whomever replaces Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as Liberal leader.
This re-evaluation of federal climate policy comes as new data from the non-profit Angus Reid Institute finds Canadians’ urgency to deal with the climate emergency, as declared in 2019, has declined.
While approaching two-thirds (63 per cent) of Canadians say climate change is a fact and it is human caused, that majority is smaller than the one seen in 2021 (71%).
At the same time, Canadians who believe climate change is a “very serious” threat to the Earth has dropped by eight points from 50 to 42%.
This decline in concern over climate change is seen across the political spectrum. Those who last voted for the Conservatives (-9 points), Liberals (-12), NDP (-6) and Bloc Québécois (-13) are all less likely to describe climate change as a “very serious threat” than they were four years ago.
However, only past Conservative voters describe it as a “minor” or “not a” threat at a majority level (57%).
This comes as the Liberals’ signature climate policy, the carbon tax, looks likely to be a thing of the past after the next federal election as both leading leadership candidates, former Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney and former Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, have said they plan to abandon the consumer side of the policy if they win the Liberal leadership race.
As the party that instituted it changes tact, Canadians’ opinions on the carbon tax itself have shifted little from the fall; more than two-in-five (45%) want the carbon tax abolished, but the rest would keep it either at a lower rate (15%), maintained at the current level (27%) or increasing, as planned (15%).
Key findings:
– a majority of Canadians (56%) say society should be responding to climate change as a “crisis” that requires urgent action. But that represents a 10% decline (63% to 56%) in the proportion who believed the same in 2023; and
– one-in-five (19%) of those who would support the Liberals in the scenario Carney wins the leadership race say the carbon tax should be abolished. One-in-six (15%) who would support the Liberals if Freeland won say the same. The latter group of Liberals is more likely (24% vs. 20%) to want the carbon tax to continue increasing as planned.
