This article was written by Liz Armstrong and was published in the Toronto Star on April 2, 2024.

LIZ ARMSTRONG LIZ ARMSTRONG IS WRITING ON BEHALF OF GRANDMOTHERS ACT TO SAVE THE PLANET , A GRASSROOTS, NON-PARTISAN GROUP OF GRANDMOTHERS — AND GRAND OTHERS — WHO CARE DEEPLY ABOUT THE WORLD OUR DESCENDANTS WILL INHERIT. MORE INFORMATION AT GASP4CHANGE

Last month, the federal Conservative party tried to force a federal election over the carbon tax that it loves to hound and harass Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about.

Claiming “everything has become more expensive” under Trudeau’s leadership, but never telling the whole truth — and more often none of it — about carbon pricing rebates that pay back more to 80 per cent of Canadians than the tax costs them, the Conservative attacks are relentless. Even more disturbing, they eclipse the real issue this carbon pricing policy targets: the need to sharply reduce Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, also the party’s chief attack dog, wasn’t in the House of Commons for the non-confidence vote he knew was bound to fail. But his timing was eerie and terrifying.

This latest gambit by Poilievre to “Axe the Tax” came just two days after the World Meteorological Association broadcast a deeply disturbing red alert about global warming. Officially certifying last year as the hottest in recorded history by a shockingly “clear margin,” the UN weather agency put it this way: “The state of the climate in 2023 gave ominous new significance to the phrase ‘off the charts.’ ”

The same day, March 19, climatologists confirmed this winter was the warmest in Canada since 1948, when official records began. Despite a few bouts of extreme cold and snow, our winter temperature records weren’t just broken, they were shattered and “it wasn’t even close,” commented senior climatologist David Phillips of Environment and Climate Change Canada.

Still, it’s been Poilievre’s simplistic rhyming slogans, repeated endlessly — Axe the Tax, Spike the Hike — that has captured most media and public attention, not the dire state of the global climate, or Canada’s oversized contribution to wrecking it more.

Provincial Conservative leaders have piled on the Axe the Tax bandwagon, including Premier Doug Ford, who warned Trudeau in midMarch that his Liberals will be “annihilated” in the next federal election if they raise the carbon price on April 1 as scheduled. (Aside to Ford: Annihilation is what burning fossil fuels is doing to our planet by heating it far beyond safe limits.)

As climate writer Chris Hatch points out, in Canada, “Somehow we manage to debate climate policy while ignoring the climate itself.” On average, the world’s richest countries have cut fossil fuel emissions, with European carbon emissions falling to 60-year lows last year. “But Canada’s carbon spew diverged from the pack since the 1990s — and the gap keeps growing,” Hatch adds.

The Liberal’s carbon tax and rebate policy alone can’t overturn our abysmal track record, but it can contribute a significant share to course correcting, then reducing Canadian emissions 40 to 45 per cent by 2030 — but only if we Max the Tax. As a reminder to federal Conservatives, that also means higher rebates for the majority of Canadians as well. The less we pollute by burning fossil fuels, the more cash that lands back in our bank accounts.

Mr. Poilievre, if you want to give your two children — all children — a better chance to inherit a livable planet, then start by creating a credible climate action plan for Canada, better than any other federal party’s. Then stop trivializing carbon pricing to score short-term political points — Max the Tax!