Premiers from Atlantic Canada expressed support for ‘axing the carbon tax’ and even increasing exports of Alberta natural gas to help reduce global emissions.Moreover, all were unanimous in calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to ensure federal policies and programs are delivered in ”a fair and equitable way to all Canadians,” particularly in light of the affordability challenges being faced across the country.It comes as Canada’s premiers gathered in Halifax Monday, ostensibly to discuss healthcare. But the carbon tax was top of mind after the prime minister’s own-goal on the issue after granting Atlantic Canadians a pass on home heating oil.In a statement following the meeting: “Premiers expressed concern that federal actions around the federal carbon tax have treated Canadians differently and expect the federal government to support all Canadians fairly.”.“I'm very sensitive to the current Canadian dynamic and not inflaming a unity issue with respect to the energy file.”Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey .That much was agreed. The main point of contention was on how to achieve it. The Atlantic premiers universally agreed the centrepiece of the Liberals’ climate policy — the carbon tax — has proven to be ineffective at what it was actually meant to do, which is reduce emissions.And also extremely divisive, with Newfoundland and Labrador boss Andrew Furey warning of “inflaming” a national unity crisis.Instead, they called on a common policy that aims to reduce emissions on a national basis — while supporting the natural resources sector — that avoids pitting regions of the country against each other..”So, from Newfoundland and Labrador's perspective, we were happy to see that there will be some relief given with respect to the home heating fuels and make no mistake, there's 20%, one in five of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, still use that product,” Furey said. “That said, we do think that this deserves a collaborative approach and I'm very sensitive to the current Canadian dynamic and not inflaming a unity issue with respect to the energy file.”Added PEI boss Dennis King: “I think this has been a really difficult issue to talk about publicly, because if you're in a jurisdiction, such as ours, and you talk about the impact of carbon tax that can quickly get thrown back at you that you're some kind of climate change denier and this knuckle dragging Neanderthal type personality, which I would say Prince Edward islanders are not.”“Why can't we work on the shared goals together to reduce our carbon footprint? This latest situation with the federal government, it didn't have to happen the way it did, I think cooler heads could have prevailed.”.BC premier David Eby — who showed up at the meeting sporting an ‘I love heat pumps’ t-shirt — agreed the policy is unfair, but only because his province isn’t eligible for the rebates because it collects its own carbon tax outside the federal system.“Fairness, fair treatment for all Canadians… I certainly very much appreciate that. I want to be clear, though, from the British Columbia perspective, the big impact on taxpayers has been we spent a billion dollars fighting forest fires this year." "We will spend well in excess of a billion dollars addressing atmospheric rivers floods in the Fraser Valley. We had a heat dome that killed hundreds of people. We had pine beetle overwintering that has decimated our forest industry." "We have massive investment to make and adaptation around dikes to prevent flooding around communities to prevent forest fires that were burning down whole towns like it did in Lytton and like it threatened to do in Kelowna,” he implored.“It's just devastating in British Columbia climate change wise and no province should expect to be exempt from those kinds of climate impacts for us, the carbon tax has been an effective mechanism to reduce carbon pollution since 2017.”
