FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 30, 2023

'Why have a carbon tax at all?’ Good Question Premiers – But Net Zero Means Things Will Get Worse

Toronto - Premiers across the country are responding to Trudeau’s recent announcement that heating oil will be exempt from the Carbon Tax, asking him “why have a carbon tax at all?” Canadians for Affordable Energy (CAE) agrees with these premiers, up to a point.

CAE President Dan McTeague applauds the growing number of premiers questioning the announcement on heating oil relief but encourages them to dig deeper on the policy disaster: “Too many politicians across Canada pretend that Net Zero is something achievable. It isn’t and all need to admit it. The fact that the Trudeau Government is trying to patch over its policy framework with regional handouts demonstrates there is a bigger problem. This isn’t just about pretending to help some voters pay for one carbon tax - the whole framework is fundamentally flawed."

McTeague suggested that many of these same premiers, while condemning Trudeau’s carbon tax on one hand, are themselves enabling the destructive Net Zero agenda in their own provinces. According to McTeague, “the Premiers must not overlook the dangerous policy framework of Net Zero by 2050.”

Justin Trudeau’s Net Zero agenda is multifaceted, involving not only the basic carbon tax that is growing every year, but a second carbon tax known as the Clean Fuel Regulations, a methane regulation, building codes changes that will make homes even more unaffordable, a clean electricity regulation that will lead to blackouts, subsidies for battery factories, electric vehicles, and intermittent and expensive energy sources like wind and solar.

McTeague notes that “What we have is a Net Zero policy framework of seemingly countless constraints on our economy, all to deliver on an ideological agenda to stop using affordable, reliable energy from hydrocarbons.”

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For media inquiries, please contact Dan McTeague at [email protected]