The majority of Canadians remain unconvinced that a new Liberal leader will eliminate the consumer carbon tax despite the top prospects pledging to do so.
According to a Leger poll released Wednesday, 51% of Canadians are not confident that Liberal candidates will live up to their word and eliminate the carbon tax. Only 36% believe they will.
The poll also examined voting intentions for the next election, preferred choices for the Liberal leadership, and attitudes toward Canada’s response to potential tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Conservatives remain the clear choice for Canadians in the next federal election, polling at 43%, a four-point drop since a similar poll conducted around three weeks earlier. The Liberals gained the 4% lost by the Conservatives, bringing them to 25%.
Prior to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation, the Liberals hadn’t gained in the polls in months.
Mark Carney is becoming the runaway favourite for the next party leader among Canadians and Liberal supporters. The winner of the Mar. 9 Liberal leadership election will become Canada’s next prime minister without a general election.
Carney is polling at 34% to replace Trudeau among all Canadians, whereas 57% of Liberal supporters would choose him. Chrystia Freeland is in third place at 14% among all party supporters and 17% among Liberals. Second place, surpassing Freeland, is the “I don’t know” option, which garnered 33% of all party supporters and 17% of Liberal party voters’ support.
One in four respondents said they would possibly change their vote to the Liberals after the party elects a new leader. Most of those who said they might change their vote were leaning towards otherwise supporting the NDP or Green Party.
Freeland said she would run for the Liberal party leadership on an anti-carbon tax platform, promising to replace the tax with a program developed through provincial collaboration.
So too has Carney, who Alberta Environment Minister Rebecca Schulz criticized for backtracking from the policies he’s long championed like the carbon tax, oil and gas cap, energy transition, and even Greta Thunberg’s ‘shut it all down’ movement.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre shared the section of the poll highlighting the carbon tax. He said Canadians won’t be fooled again and discussed what Carney would really do.
“Here is what he would do: 1) suspend the tax a few months before the election and promise he’d never bring it back; 2) if re-elected, he would bring in the biggest carbon tax ever — an idea he is on camera supporting countless times for many years,” said Poilievre.
Carney has previously said that carbon prices have “been set far too low — in the single digits on average globally — well short of the estimated $80 to $100 a tonne needed by the end of this decade to keep us on the track to net-zero.”
The carbon tax reached $80 per tonne on Apr. 1, 2024. It is set to increase incrementally until it reaches $170 per tonne in 2030.
True North previously highlighted a research report which showed that the carbon tax would need to reach over $350 per tonne to achieve net-zero 2050 targets.
Poilievre shared another post to X of an interview where he justified his slogan that Carney is “Just like Justin.”
“He’s been running the government behind the scenes for the last four years since he started advising Trudeau. He’s been pulling the strings. Nobody believes Justin Trudeau has been running this country. Trudeau is a puppet, and he’s been pulling the strings,” said Poilievre. “So it’s not surprising that he feels entitled to walk in and take over with only the support of a couple, you know, 20,000 Liberal insiders. He thinks he can rule over 41 million Canadians.”
