Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promoted his national carbon tax Thursday as a “price on pollution.” As CBC News reports, Trudeau spoke at a Saskatoon, Sask. college gymnasium with a plethora of empty seats. Saskatchewan’s provincial government is taking the Federal Government to court over Trudeau’s insistence that the entire country buckle under to his carbon tax.
It was Trudeau’s first speech since emerging from a three-day caucus retreat that discussed, among other things, the stalled NAFTA talks. Students, usually Trudeau’s most enthusiastic supporters, seemed wary of Trudeau’s carbon tax.
One student queried, “Where are we really going with this carbon tax thing? What’s really the point?” He suggested that it was better to pursue energy efficiency than impose another tax in Canada.
Trudeau acknowledged the doubters but then declared carbon emissions to be pollution.
“Climate change is real and it’s a real challenge to our world … The question is, what is the best way to take real action on this? The idea, it’s fairly well accepted, is we should make the companies that are polluting responsible for their pollution — by paying,” he said.
“The idea of putting a cost, a price on pollution is not just to bring in money … It’s actually to encourage someone to say, ‘Well it won’t cost me as much if I only pollute half as much.'”
According to CBC, one Liberal MP frankly admitted that the Trudeau government was equating carbon to pollution in an effort to appeal to voters who opposed the national tax.
“Because who really likes pollution?” the MP said.
