OPINION: Singh should return NDP to its roots and scrap the carbon tax
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NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has a golden opportunity to bring his party back to its roots by fighting to scrap the carbon tax.
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“We want to see an approach to fighting the climate crisis where it doesn’t put the burden on the backs of working people,” Singh said, when asked about his stance on the carbon tax.
This is a huge opening on the carbon tax and the NDP should drive a truck through it.
Jack Layton, the leader who brought the NDP to its high-water mark, opposed the carbon tax.
“Those advocating a carbon tax suggest that by making the cost of certain things more expensive people will make different choices, but Canada is a cold place and heating your home really isn’t a choice,” Layton said. “We shouldn’t punish people and that’s what a carbon tax does.”
Back then, it was normal to see the NDP leader doing news conferences flanked by people wearing yellow vests and hard hats. Layton often highlighted working people who knew how to use a welding torch and had a Class One licence in their pocket.
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The party’s provincial politicians opposed carbon taxes, too.
When the B.C. Liberals created the first carbon tax in Canada, the NDP railed against it. Its leader at the time, Carol James, called claims of a revenue-neutral carbon tax “lipstick on a pig.”
The B.C. NDP’s 2008 campaign slogan was “Axe the Tax.”
Like anyone else, politicians can wander off track. They can go along to get in with the “in crowd,” until they realize the in crowd is full of folks who don’t understand where home heating comes from.
It’s important to leave the door open and let politicians return to their core. This potential carbon tax awakening from Singh is one of those opportunities.
All Singh needs to do is walk back through the door to the house his party built and return to the original stance of the NDP — opposing the carbon tax.
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And there are election results to back that stance up.
Former Liberal leader Stéphane Dion built his 2008 election campaign platform around carbon taxes. The Liberals lost 26 seats. The NDP, with Layton hammering away at the carbon tax, gained eight seats.
Layton’s NDP maintained that opposition and it paid off.
In 2011, the NDP captured 103 seats during Layton’s Orange Wave and formed official opposition for the first time in its history.
“The well-documented reality is, the NDP has opposed a carbon tax in the past and continues to do so now,” the NDP said in 2012.
The most popular premier in the country, according to Angus Reid’s March poll, is the NDP’s Wab Kinew.
Under Kinew, Manitoba suspended its 14¢ per litre fuel tax.
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“In our household, the workhorse that we use to drive to work, to drive the kids to their activities, is a pickup truck and it takes 100 litres to fill up every time we go to the pump,” Kinew said. “For a family using a vehicle like that, it’ll save you $14 every single time you gas up.”
Singh’s right that carbon taxes put “the burden on the backs of working people.”
The carbon tax on natural gas costs the average family more than $300 to heat their homes annually. A mom filling up her minivan once a week will pay $670 more per year because of the carbon tax. The carbon tax will cost Canadian truckers about $2 billion this year and it will cost Canadian farmers $1 billion by 2030. And for average Canadians, the rebates simply don’t cover the economic costs that cascade through the economy, according to the parliamentary budget officer.
With Layton at the helm, the NDP knew way back in 2008 that the carbon tax was a punishment on ordinary people, from farmers to truckers to workers shopping for groceries while struggling to afford their heating bills.
Singh should take a page from Layton’s playbook, seize the moment, and fight for working-class Canadians by pushing to scrap the carbon tax.
Franco Terrazzano is the federal director and Kris Sims is the Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
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