Northern Tory candidates slam NDP-Lib cap-and-trade plans

The three Conservative candidates in the northern territories say they’re opposed to a “carbon tax” — the term they use to describe cap-and-trade schemes promoted by their NDP and Liberals opponent. (FILE PHOTO)

The day after United States President Barack Obama said in Alaska that climate change “will define the contours of this century more dramatically than any other,” the three Conservative candidates in the northern territories put out a statement Sept. 1 accusing their opponents of proposing a “carbon tax.”

“Our Conservative government opposes forcing a carbon tax on northern families and believes in lowering taxes for Canadians,” the statement said.

The statement was issued by Conservative candidate Leona Aglukkaq of Nunavut, Ryan Leef of Yukon and Floyd Roland of the Northwest Territories.

“Any form of a carbon tax would impact every single person living in the North, making the North even more costly to live and work,” their statement said.

However, neither Tom Mulcair’s New Democratic Party nor Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have actually proposed a direct tax on CO2-emitting fuels, linked to climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

The NDP proposes a national cap-and-trade system.

Under it, large emitters of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming would be assigned limits, or “caps” on their CO2 emissions.

Under a market system, emitters who exceed those caps would trade their excess emissions with firms that emit less than their allotted cap.

Mulcair has also said that if he is elected as prime minister, he would attend the United Nations COP21 climate change conference in Paris this December.

“As Prime Minister, Tom will work to kick-start renewable energy production and drive down climate-changing emissions. He’ll make big polluters pay to clean up their mess,” an NDP campaign statement says.

The federal Liberal party position is to set national emissions standards, but to let provinces and territories work out their own C02 reduction policies.

“We will give provincial and territorial governments the flexibility to design their own policies to meet these commitments, including their own carbon pricing policies,” the Liberal party said Sept. 2 in a campaign statement.

This past April, Ontario joined Quebec in the creation of a provincial cap-and-trade system.

British Columbia already has a provincial carbon tax and Alberta has a policy that requires large industries to reduce carbon intensity by 12 per cent.

Trudeau also said that, if elected prime minister, he would hold a first minister’s meeting on climate change within 90 days of taking office and he would invite provincial and territorial premiers to attend COP21 in Paris.

He also said that a Liberal government would work with the United States and Mexico on “an ambitious North American clean energy and environmental agreement.”

In any case, it’s unlikely that either the NDP or the Liberals will propose a direct tax on carbon any time soon.

In the October 2008 federal election, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives destroyed Stephane Dion’s Liberals by characterizing Dion’s Green Shift carbon tax scheme as the “Green Shaft.”

But in this election, the Conservatives are still invoking memories of that policy to beat up on their opponents.

“From the food on our tables to the cars that we drive, almost everything is shipped up to the North. That is why we are deeply concerned by the Liberals and NDP, who have vowed to create carbon taxes across Canada,” the Tory statement said.