PC leadership candidates clash over carbon tax

James Wood, Calgary Herald
More from James Wood, Calgary Herald

A war of words among Tories is already underway as the Alberta carbon tax shapes up as one of the most divisive issues in a Progressive Conservative leadership race already deeply split over the idea of uniting the provincial right.

Former Conservative MP Jason Kenney has vowed to scrap the NDP government’s incoming broad-based carbon levy, while other leadership candidates such as Donna Kennedy-Glans, Sandra Jansen and Byron Nelson have backed the concept of a carbon tax — even while decrying the NDP’s model.

Richard Starke is the only other leadership candidate in the field who has promised to eliminate the government’s carbon tax, with no plans to replace it.

The tax appears to be a hard sell politically, with two recent polls, from Lethbridge College’s Citizen Society Research Lab and ThinkHQ Public Affairs, showing about two-thirds of Albertans opposed to the tax.

But a complicating factor is the federal Liberal government’s intention to mandate provinces to price carbon, through a tax or cap-and-trade system, starting in 2018. If provinces refuse, Ottawa will implement its own tax.

Kennedy-Glans said this week that the Trudeau government’s move shows the holes in Kenney’s position.

“Isn’t that funny, a guy from Ottawa, and then we would end up with the feds deciding what our carbon tax is. We don’t do that in Alberta. We do not let our federal politicians decide what provincial policy looks like. That’s a big deal,” she said in an interview.

The former associate minister for electricity and renewables also believes the polls showing opposition to the province’s carbon tax are misleading.

Premier Rachel Notley’s government has introduced the carbon tax — initially based on the equivalent of $20 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions, rising to $30 in 2018 — as part of a sweeping climate change strategy aimed both at reducing Alberta’s Canada-leading greenhouse gas emissions and winning support across the country for new pipelines to ship the province’s oilsands crude.

Coming into effect on Jan. 1, the tax is projected to cost the average family $433 in direct and indirect costs in the first year, though the province will provide rebates ranging from $100 to $360 to two-thirds of provincial households.

Other funds raised through the tax will be used for public transit and renewable energy projects.

Kennedy-Glans said the NDP tax is flawed because there weren’t adequate public consultations, but a revamped levy that is revenue-neutral through offsetting tax cuts and more sensitive to certain business sectors could be acceptable to Albertans.

“People in Alberta understood we have to move into a carbon-reduced world, that they had to be part of the solution. What they were never asked about as voters or citizens is how we do that,” she said.

But Kenney fired back at Kennedy-Glans on Friday, saying that her position — and those of the other candidates backing a carbon tax — shows they’re out of touch with everyday Albertans.

“Her attitude reflects exactly why the PC party was repudiated by Albertans last year,” he said.

“Albertans believed the party became arrogant and out-of-touch and her attitude is a perfect example of telling people what to think.”

Kenney said Albertans want a government that is willing to “fight Ottawa” over the carbon tax as opposed to accepting it.

The Tories, who will hold their annual general meeting next week in Red Deer, will pick their new leader in a delegated convention next spring.

Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt notes the divide over the carbon tax approximates the fracture that has so far defined the race, with Kenney running on a platform of merging the PCs with the Wildrose in a new party and all the other candidates calling for the Tories to rebuild under the Progressive Conservative brand.

“It is going to be nasty,” he said in an interview this week.

“It will be fought over uniting the right, it is going to be fought over the carbon tax — issues that are hard to compromise on, that are difficult for people … to cross over and support.”

Bratt thinks each side on the carbon tax debate within PC ranks will face political challenges. While proponents have to make the case for carbon tax, Kenney will face questions over what he will propose as an alternative to take on climate change.

He said a carbon tax is not necessarily out of bounds for the PCs, with the previous Tory government having brought in a carbon levy on the greenhouse gas emissions of large industrial operations.

“It’s easy to run on a campaign of ‘axe the tax.’ It’s much tougher to say, ‘what would you do instead?’” said Bratt.

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