EDITORIAL: United against Trudeau’s carbon tax

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The Trudeau Liberals have finally succeeded in uniting the country on something — although not in the way they planned.

A new poll conducted by Leger for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation finds Canadians are overwhelmingly in support of immediately suspending Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax, also known as the federal fuel charge.

This applies to every major demographic group — men, women, all ages, all regions and among Liberal, Conservative, NDP, BQ and Green voters.

Then again, that’s hardly surprising given the three main Liberal contenders running to replace Trudeau — Mark Carney, Chrystia Freeland and Karina Gould — are all backing away from supporting the current version of the carbon tax in one way or another.

Ironically, when Trudeau introduced his national carbon tax in 2019, his hope was that it would unite the country in fighting climate change.

Instead, it has become an anchor around the Liberals’ necks as they head into this year’s federal election.

The Leger poll, conducted from Jan. 24-26 among a panel of 1,527 Canadian adults, found almost two-thirds of those surveyed (64%) want the fuel charge, which raises the cost of gasoline, natural gas and 20 other forms of fossil fuel energy every year until 2030, immediately suspended.

Only 19% opposed suspending the carbon tax.

When removing the 17% of those surveyed with no opinion on the issue — a common practice in polling — the number of people who have already made up their minds is astonishing.

In that case, more than three-quarters of Canadians who have made a decision on this issue (77%) want the carbon tax suspended now, compared to only 23% who don’t.

While decided Conservative voters are opposed to the tax — at 89% — substantial majorities among supporters of the other parties agree, including 67% of Liberal voters, 65% of NDP voters, 64% of BQ voters, 68% of Green voters and 76% of voters supporting other parties.

“In light of these numbers, the government must do the right thing and scrap the carbon tax now,” said CTF federal director Franco Terrazzano.

Indeed, what is both surprising and alarming is that the Liberals, who must have picked up on the growing nationwide antipathy to Trudeau’s carbon tax in their own polling, failed to kill it long before now.