Carney backtracks, admits consumers pay industrial carbon tax

Liberal leadership candidate and former Trudeau finance advisor Mark Carney now admits that some of the cost for his proposed industrial carbon tax will be passed on to Canadian consumers.

Source: Facebook

Author: Clayton DeMaine

Liberal leadership candidate and former Trudeau finance advisor Mark Carney now admits that some of the cost for his proposed industrial carbon tax will be passed on to Canadian consumers. However, he says its effect will be “marginal.”

In an interview with CBC’s Rosemary Barton on Sunday, Carney said any added costs would only be a “marginal amount.”

This marks a correction to Carney’s previous comments at the end of last month when he said in a CTV interview that the carbon tax would only impact “big polluters.” At the time, he denied that costs associated with taxing industries such as the steel industry would “trickle down” to consumers.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said the combination of U.S. President Donald Trump’s 25% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum and Carney’s producer carbon tax would devastate Canada’s steel industry.

But on Sunday, Carney admitted his tax will impact consumers downstream.

“Let’s take the example of the steel industry. So there’s a carbon price on steel to the extent to which that’s paid. Yes, that does show up in the cost, for example, of an automobile,” Carney told Barton.

“Now let’s put this into proportions. If you look at a $25,000 or less car, the cost is that if you replaced all the steel and it became green steel, then there is no carbon steel, which is an extreme version of what we’re talking about here. It’s less than the $200 additional price. So it’s something, but it’s not much.”

When Barton asked Carney if he acknowledged that the producer tax would impact consumers, he admitted that the producer carbon tax was already affecting consumers.

“Just to be clear, the consumer is already paying more,” he said. “These are marginal amounts.”

Carney’s plan involves removing the consumer carbon tax, affecting small and medium-sized enterprises and “everyone up to 50 kilotons of emissions.”

As it stands now, the producer carbon tax allows industries to purchase carbon credits based on the level of emissions they were able to reduce, reducing the price they pay for the carbon tax.

“That carbon credit market doesn’t function very well. So what we’re doing here is improving the market, improving how it functions, adding additional credits, so additional options for those large polluters, they could buy these credits,” Carney said. “What’s going to be new is a series of new incentives for households to reduce those emissions.”

Carney defended his tweaks to the carbon price rather than scrapping it entirely. He said the carbon tax is important because the European Union will be Canada’s next most likely trade partner amid the U.S.-Canada trade spat – and the EU “cares” about the carbon tax.

Deputy leader of the opposition, Melissa Lantsman, sounded off about Carney’s flip-flop on X on Sunday.

“Probably time for the media to stop gaslighting Canadians about Carney’s carbon tax. Seems he figured out that Canadians do use steel — and now admits that everyone will pay more for his new and bigger carbon tax,” she said in the post. “What does ‘marginal’ mean to self-described elitist? Is it hundreds, or is it thousands?”

Lantsman referred to comments Carney made on Saturday on The Rest is Politics podcast with Alastair Campbell – a British journalist and former labour strategist and former Trump spokesman Anthony Scaramucci.

“People will charge me with being elitist or a globalist, to use that term, which is, well, that’s exactly, it happens to be exactly what we need,” Carney said.

The next leader of the Liberal party and, therefore, the next Prime Minister of Canada will be announced by the Liberal Party on March 9, though Carney is favoured to win.