B.C. scrapping provincial carbon tax after Carney kills it federally
Eby says there will be no tax increase April 1 and tax will be axed altogether shortly afterwards
B.C. Premier David Eby says his government is drafting legislation to scrap the province's consumer carbon tax following a promise from Prime Minister Mark Carney to do the same.
Eby made the comments Friday afternoon at a town hall in Surrey to discuss the threat of tariffs from the United States.
"This is the first time we've shared this, is that British Columbia will be introducing a law before April 1 that ensures that British Columbians don't have to pay that increase on April 1," he said, referring to the scheduled increase of $15/tonne that is required by federal legislation.
Following that, he said, his party would be moving to scrap the tax "altogether."
Eby's announcement came just moments before Mark Carney, in his first act as the new prime minister of Canada, gave an order-in-council to remove the federal carbon tax.
First carbon tax in Canada
British Columbia was the first jurisdiction in Canada to introduce carbon pricing through a consumer tax, under then-premier Gordon Campbell of the B.C. Liberals, which was at the time the province's centre-right leaning party.
The tax, introduced in 2008, was initially set at $10 per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions and was meant to be revenue-neutral, with the government refunding costs to lower-income residents.
Its creation was opposed by the NDP, which launched an "axe the tax" campaign, arguing it would kill jobs and campaigned on a promise to repeal it if it won the next election.
It did not, and the tax proved popular. Several economists credited it with helping reduce emissions while also growing the economy. Eventually, the NDP came around, as well, and kept it in place after forming government in 2017.
But the popularity waned when Justin Trudeau introduced federal requirements in 2019 that provinces either put their own price on carbon or submit to federal guidelines.
In the years that followed, the federal Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre campaigned on a pledge to "axe the tax." While campaigning for the leadership of the federal Liberals, Carney said the policy was "too divisive" and promised to kill it despite his support for carbon pricing.
During last year's provincial leadership campaign, Eby also acknowledged the divisiveness of the carbon tax and said that if the federal requirement to have one in place was dropped, he would follow suit, instead shifting focus to targeting "big polluters" to pay their "fair share."
He said much the same Friday, telling people in Surrey that climate change is a continued threat and his party will take steps to make sure that "big polluters pay" and move to adopt pollution-reducing technologies, noting the urgent need to reduce emissions given the impacts of drought, forest fire and other disasters in B.C.
New opportunities
Thomas Green, a climate policy adviser at the David Suzuki Foundation, said although most households were better off thanks to the rebate that came with the tax, Eby's move to end it was broadly expected.
"Unfortunately the price on pollution had become politically toxic. There was a lot of misinformation about it," Green said.
With the consumer carbon tax in the rearview mirror, Green said governments now have an opportunity to focus on new policies to address climate change.
"The technology to reduce our emissions is there," he said. "I don't think people expected the technology for … solar panels, electric cars, [and] batteries would become so good."
Green said he hopes to see politicians from all parties support new bills to fight climate change.
"We have the option to quickly switch the economy to running on electricity, clean electricity we can produce here in Canada with renewables rather than using fossil fuels. So that's going to improve affordability," he said.
Industrial emitters
B.C. Conservative Party Opposition Leader John Rustad said he thinks it's time to eliminate all components of the carbon tax, including the tax on industrial emitters — a component that was not changed by Eby's announcement.
"Now is the time to be decisive ... by eliminating the carbon tax entirely," he said.
"We need to make strategies to adapt to our changing climate. We need to make sure that we focus on affordability ... and encourage investment in new technologies so that we can be far more efficient in the energy we do consume."
With files from Maryam Gamar