The Canadian Climate Institute (CCI) wants you to see it as a sober, nonpartisan referee in the carbon tax debate. It is not. It is an advocacy operation with a research department and it is being financed, in large part, by the same federal government it lobbies.Start with the basics. The CCI was founded in 2020, according to its public corporate profile.Now follow the money. .HANNAFORD: My bet, back to the polls in spring.The federal government’s own public disclosure shows a $30 million contribution to the CCI on April 4, 2023, under an “expert engagement initiative on clean growth and climate change.”The same portal also shows another $4,395,530 contribution to the CCI from the Department of Finance on December 12, 2025.Those two items alone total more than $34 million since 2023, using Ottawa’s own posted numbers. The real total is higher once you account for other public funding streams and multi-year arrangements. It’s $51,394,530 in total funding since 2023. Taxpayers are paying for a group whose job includes pushing “climate change” policy on taxpayers’ behalf, without taxpayers’ consent..And yes, “pushing policy” is the right phrase. The federal lobbying registry lists the CCI as an in-house lobbying organization. The registry summary also states, plainly, that it has “received government funding or funding expected in current financial year.”This is where Canadians should pause.There is nothing wrong with a think tank arguing for a carbon tax, or against it. That is part of a free society. The problem is when the government bankrolls one side of a live political fight and then points to that funded group as “independent” support.You can see how the loop works. The CCI recently put out a fact sheet claiming industrial carbon pricing costs consumers “next to nothing,” including “around zero percent” impact on household consumption in 2025..CUSANELLI: Canadians deserve truth, not another sign in the window.Then cabinet ministers cite the CCI’s conclusions, as if they came from a neutral third party. That is not independence. That is a government-funded echo chamber.Supporters will say, “So what? The institute does modelling. We need evidence-based policy.” Fine. But modelling is not gospel. It is a set of assumptions. Pick different assumptions on trade exposure, pass-through costs, compliance behaviour, or future investment, and you can get different answers. The CCI’s public communications are framed to sell a policy not to test it.Even the federal government’s own description of industrial carbon pricing acknowledges that the system, as marketed, is designed to reduce emissions while simultaneously addressing concerns about competitiveness and carbon leakage risks. That is bureaucratic language for this policy creates costs, and Ottawa is trying to manage the damage..There is also a hard political reality here. Canada’s carbon regime is not just an academic exercise. It affects investment decisions, jobs, and energy prices. There’s growing pressure to scrap the federal industrial carbon price system, including a letter signed by oil and gas CEOs and calls from federal opposition leaders who argue the system harms competitiveness.This is contested ground. Which makes it even less acceptable for Ottawa to fund one team’s research shop.The CCI itself says it aims to “help shape sound public policies” on climate. That is an advocacy mission, dressed up in technocratic language. Again, advocacy is legal. Advocacy on the public dime is the issue..RUBENSTEIN: The systemic failure to explain the murder of indigenous women.If Ottawa wants advice, it already has a public service, regulators, and parliamentary officers paid to provide analysis. If Ottawa wants outside research, it can commission work through open competition and publish the full contracts, methods, and data. What it should not do is build a semi-official lobby group, fund it with taxpayers money, then use its reports as talking points in Question Period.A government that believes in its carbon policy should defend it on the merits. Not outsource persuasion to a taxpayer-funded institute and then call the result “independent.”That is not transparency.
