Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the carbon tax “part of the most successful plan to fight climate change that is bending the curve on our emissions faster than any of our peer countries.” However, Trudeau said Canada is a significant oil and gas producer and will continue to be for many years, as the world continues to rely on it. “But it’s allowing us to innovate, to invest in hydrogen, in more nuclear, in small modular reactors, in renewables, in wind, in offshore wind — the kind of things we know the world is going to be using 100 years from now,” said Trudeau in a Monday interview at a Halifax Chamber of Commerce event. “We know that 100 years from now, we’ll all be on renewables or on some magic form of fusion that has been invented.” Right now, Trudeau said Canada is not there yet. He pointed out the question “is do we get to lead on our way there and reap the benefits of leading on that, or do we get dragged along kicking and screaming by the folks who are focused on maximizing profits to the old way of doing things and leaving ther mess to be cleaned up by somebody else.” Trudeau concluded by saying that is not the way Canadians think about their future. “That’s not the ambition we need for the country,” he said. Trudeau said at Global Citizen Now on November 17 people should not deprioritize saving the environment, even when they are in short-term survival mode trying to put food on the table for their families. .WATCH: Trudeau wants families to prioritize climate change over feeding their kids.“It’s really, really easy to say OK, let’s put climate change as a slightly lower priority when families are worried about how to pay the rent this month and how to buy groceries for my kids,” he said. “We can’t do that around climate change.”
