Canada’s Carbon Pricing Policy and its Champion

On Tuesday, October 23, 2018, Prime Minister Trudeau announced: “It is free to pollute, so we have too much pollution.” He presented the solution simply too, saying, “Starting next year, it will no longer be free to pollute anywhere in Canada. We are going to place a price on the pollution that causes climate change from coast to coast to coast. We’re also going to help Canadians adjust to this new reality.” Trudeau said, “Eight in 10 Ontario families will get back more than they pay.” The policy also includes extra support for small, rural and remote Canadian communities and our farmers do not pay the carbon fee on their diesel fuel. Trudeau emphasized that “every nickel” of the carbon pricing revenue would be returned to Canadians. The carbon fee revenue returned to households will be called a Climate Action Incentive. And thus, Canada became the first country in the world to enact a carbon fee and dividend policy - a policy Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada relentlessly advocated for since 2010. Recently in the USA, 3,508 economists have written to say carbon fee and dividend will work, including 27 Nobel Laureate economists. In Canada, prominent conservatives, like Preston Manning, Patrick Brown, Michael Chong and Shell Oil support revenue neutral carbon taxes. We know it is working in British Columbia too. Canada’s carbon fee and dividend policy has been championed by the Honourable Catherine McKenna, our Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Everyone knows we are in a global emergency and that Canada’s carbon pricing will work, but there has been pushback on social media against the Honourable Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Some of it has been extreme, nasty and sexist. Everyone around the world, please help Canada create a better world because of the climate crisis by Agree with this campaign and share it to Minister McKenna via twitter https://twitter.com/cathmckenna Paraphrasing my colleague, Joseph Robertson, Global Director of Strategy at Citizens’ Climate Lobby, “Zero-sum protectionist thinking delivers what we fear instead of what’s possible, and miraculous solutions appear once we stop arguing and start collaborating.”