This opinion was written by Susan Delacourt and was published in the Toronto Star on April 3, 2024.

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey has asked Justin Trudeau to call an emergency meeting on the carbon levy. It’s a good idea and the prime minister should take him up on it, as soon as possible.

It is definitely a much better idea than the alternative, currently unfolding all over the country, quickly approaching the level of an all-out tax revolt. On Tuesday, it was Ontario Premier Doug Ford, warning Trudeau to lose the levy or lose the next election.

In some quarters, this carbon price debacle is looking like what happens when convoy protests meet climate change — a new form of populist rebellion against government measures that many citizens find hard to swallow.

That brand of protest will tempt Trudeau to push on past the public outcry, as he did with the protests against vaccine mandates during the pandemic. Moreover, the prime minister won’t want to be seen caving to a cause that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is trying to ride to victory in the next election.

But the unravelling of the carbon levy is worth a full-blown first ministers meeting, just like all those ones Trudeau held with premiers regularly during the early days of COVID.

I’ve been thinking about the necessity of a first ministers meeting for a couple of weeks now, ever since attending an event of Carleton University’s school of political management, featuring former CBC anchor Peter Mansbridge in conversation with journalist Chantal Hébert and columnist Bruce Anderson.

Mansbridge recalled for students how, back in the olden days, prime ministers such as Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau held first ministers meetings out in the open, where the public could witness the impassioned back-and-forth between Ottawa and the provinces. He lamented how those meetings have now disappeared behind closed doors, producing bland communiqués and cash transfer deals.

It might do the country good, Mansbridge suggested, for Canadians to see their prime minister and provincial and territorial leaders grappling with the big issues of the day.

Canada, indeed the planet, has two of those big issues casting huge shadows these days — affordability and climate change. The carbon levy is where they meet. If those issues don’t deserve a serious, transparent discussion among the country’s top politicians, what does?

So far, this is a conversation being waged largely through slogans shouted at rallies and diatribes launched from press conference podiums. No side is really talking to the other.

My colleague Aaron Wherry over at CBC has also been musing about how a first ministers meeting could be what the country needs right now. Wherry was writing after some of the premiers descended on a Commons committee meeting last week to publicly vent against the carbon levy in surprise testimonial appearances.

“With the premiers apparently so eager to discuss climate policy, it’s tempting to wonder what might be clarified and accomplished if they were all invited to Ottawa for a televised meeting — with the expectation that they would arrive with a fully costed and independently analyzed plan for how their province would reduce its emissions in line with Canada’s national targets.”

Open first ministers meetings are high-risk events, especially for prime ministers crazy enough to paint a target on their backs and have the premiers pile on in public. But at this point, what does Trudeau have to lose? It would be a chance for him to show a side of him the public rarely sees — convening and leading a discussion as he does in cabinet or at those closed first ministers gatherings.

I picture it as a meeting held over two or even three days. One day can focus on the carbon levy as a climate measure; another day can focus on what the carbon levy is doing to affordability.

It could work like those old constitutional conferences — opening statements before the cameras, some haggling afterward in closed sessions, and then back in public to report on what their conversations yielded by way of compromise or concession.

Then on the third day, the leaders can find bridges to build between those two aspects to the debate — are we talking affordability or climate, or both? And what are we going to do about them?

There’s one other not-insignificant reason to hold such a meeting. At the moment, we have a jarring mismatch in the federation: a Parliament in which the majority of MPs support the carbon levy, and a nation in which the majority of premiers do not. Why is that the case? Aren’t these politicians representing the same citizens?

Poilievre and some of the premiers are keen for a carbon levy election.

But that’s more than a year away. In the meantime, Canada would be well served by a carbon price first ministers meeting, held out in the open, as the debate — and, you could argue, the planet and the country — deserves.