Pierre Poilievre’s plan for tackling climate change remains hazy

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OTTAWA—Smoky skies from raging wildfires cleared over Ottawa on Thursday. But details of how a Conservative government led by Pierre Poilievre would fight climate change remained hazy.

The fires and the smoke blanketing big cities in Canada and the United States brought the urgency of the climate crisis to the fore — and with that came pressure on Poilievre's Conservatives to spell out exactly what they would do about it.

He rarely touched the subject in his successful bid last year for leadership of a party that has struggled over two federal election cycles to articulate a vision on climate change that resonates with voters.

Liberal MPs heckled him on that very point during his marathon speech against the federal budget on Wednesday, raising the fact that Conservative members voted for a motion at their last policy conference that declared climate change isn't real.

"Yes, it is real," Poilievre said in response, and on Thursday, he told reporters that his party's climate plan — which will likely be part of the Conservative platform in the next general election campaign — will aim to reduce those emissions.

The question is, how exactly will they do that?

Poilievre has been clear on what he opposes. He has pledged to scrap the Liberal government's carbon levy on consumer fuels like gasoline. He also opposes incoming — and long delayed — regulations to force producers to make cleaner fuel, a policy he maligns as just another "carbon tax" that will hurt Canadians.

Instead of such measures, Poilievre has picked up a line from his predecessors: he’d promote clean technology, not measures that make fossil fuels more expensive to deter people from burning them.

During his speech Wednesday, Poilievre responded to Liberal taunts by stating that "our approach will be to deploy technology, not taxes."

"Name one," they challenged.

His first answer came quickly: a tidal power project in Nova Scotia that was scuttled after years of delays its proponents blamed on government regulatory processes.

He then threw out two more examples: the demand by Quebec to build more hydroelectric dams, and deals signed by provinces to build small nuclear reactors.

In all cases, he said, the assessments and regulations required to get those projects off the ground stall them, instead of getting them built.

It can take up to 15 years to get a nuclear plant built — what more can be learned about safety or environmental protections in years 14 and 15 that couldn't have been learned in the first four years, Poilievre asked.

"The prime minister stands in the way of the very projects that would lower the cost of carbon-free energy while he simultaneously raises the cost of traditional oil and gas on which Canadians continue to rely," he said.

A Poilievre government would speed up those processes — he's yet to say how — while continuing to protect safety and the environment, he said.

That a party can't form a government in Canada without a credible climate plan is an accepted feature of modern political life.

But what is credible has become the subject of considerable partisan wrangling.

The Conservatives continue to argue that the Liberals’ signature market method — carbon pricing — just ratchets up everyday costs for Canadians without sufficiently bringing down emissions.

"The prime minister went so far as to claim that the carbon tax would mean fewer forest fires, something that is utterly contrary to basic science and basic reality," Poilievre said during his speech.

"His carbon tax has not been able to reduce emissions, far be it to eliminate forest fires."

The counter-argument from the Liberals is that the cost of doing nothing is far more damaging in the longer term. They also point to carbon levy rebates that are sent every three months to households where the federal policy applies

Ingrid Thompson is among those who have long called for the Conservatives to develop a "credible" climate plan.

A former head of Pollution Probe, Thompson advised then-leader Erin O’Toole on his climate plan for the 2021 election campaign.

To Thompson, Poilievre's Conservatives need to avoid catering to voters in oil-rich regions like Alberta — where they already hold almost all the seats — at the expense of earning support in places like the Greater Toronto Area that could help the party win the next election.

She argues a detailed and believable climate plan is a key part of making that happen.

"It will be their Achilles heel if they don't take it seriously," she said.

The party's last two leaders have taken differing approaches on the file.

In 2019, then-leader Andrew Scheer campaigned on a climate platform that upheld a 2030 emissions target established under Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, but didn't say how that goal would be reached.

He vowed to scrap the "job-killing carbon tax" the Trudeau government introduced, and instead implement emissions caps for different industrial sectors, where businesses that produced too much carbon pollution would have to pay for clean tech research and development.

Under O’Toole, the party embraced a version of a consumer carbon levy while denying he was proposing carbon "tax."

The plan was to cap the levy at $50 per tonne of emissions — the Liberal government's is slated to increase to $170 per tonne by 2030 — and put the proceeds into accounts that Canadians would use to purchase a range of environmentally friendly products.

Poilievre — and his entire caucus — ran on that platform in 2021, and the Liberals remind them of it whenever Poilievre promises to "axe the tax."

Proof of Poilievre's commitment to his "technology not taxes" mantra might be tested in the coming months.

The Liberals are set to create a suite of tax credits, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars by 2035, to spur the development of clean electricity, technology manufacturing, hydrogen energy development, and projects that remove greenhouse gas emissions from the air.

How Poilievre's Conservatives choose to vote on those credits will be another clarifying moment for the party's emerging climate plan.

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