GOLDSTEIN: Fixing Trudeau’s flawed climate change policies requires more than killing his carbon tax

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling for an “axe the tax” election this year .

In reality, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ’s carbon tax meaning in this context the federal fuel charge on 22 different forms of fossil fuel energy, including gasoline and natural gas is not a major contributor to reducing industrial greenhouse gas emissions.

The Canadian Climate Institute an independent, federally-funded think tank estimated in 2024 that the fuel charge will account for a mere 8% to 14% of reducing emissions to the federal target of 40% below 2005 levels by 2030 .

The premature elimination of natural gas in favour of wind and solar power could make Canada ’s electricity grid, run by the provinces, increasingly unstable and vulnerable to brownouts and blackouts, with significant new costs imposed on the public.

Creating domestic supply chains to provide the raw materials to manufacture EVs and EV batteries currently dominated by China will require the rapid expansion of Canadian mining operations.

Increased demands on the electricity grid are also coming because of the need to power energy hungry artificial intelligence systems.