Justin Trudeau Sets Out To Battle The Anti-Carbon Tax Gang

Adam Scotti

It was a showdown that has been building for some time. So I was glad to see Justin Trudeau finally take on the grubby gang of premiers who have refused to join his plan to fight climate change.

The ones who have been trying to portray a federal carbon tax as something satanic, instead of the best way to reduce emissions and green our economy.

And the way Trudeau went about doing it couldn't be more brilliant.



For his plan both forces the premiers to bite the bullet, while rewarding Canadian families.

The federal Liberal government will slap a carbon tax on fuels in provinces and territories with no adequate emissions pricing plans of their own — but will send annual rebates to Canadian families to offset most of the added costs of this climate-change fighting initiative.

"The science is unequivocal: putting a price on pollution is one of the best ways to move forward," he said to reporters and Humber College students in the Etobicoke riding of Ontario Premier Doug Ford, a vocal carbon tax foe.

Appealing to the young, while delivering a stern message to the grotesque climate change deniers like the brutish Doug Ford.



"The problem exists because your political leaders have done far too little about this. Will we kick this can down the road yet again? Or will we show some courage to do what needs to be done?" Trudeau said.

And doing the right thing, while making the plan more palatable with a spoonful of sugar. 

The biggest spoonful of sugar will come in the form of a generous rebate delivered directly to individuals in provinces that have refused to implement an adequate carbon-pricing regime: namely, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

And going over the heads of the would be Con planet burners.

Above all, it’s politically smart to hand carbon revenues directly to people, rather than to intransigent provincial governments. Doing so helps counter the federal Conservative talking point that the carbon tax is a revenue grab.

Like the moronic bubba Ford.



Or the failing Andrew Scheer.



Who will be left looking like Con bozos trying to torch the planet AND keep money out of the pockets of Canadians.

And of course the timing couldn't be better, with that money starting to arrive in the Spring, just before a summer that could be hotter than ever.

Which just a few months before the election, can only reinforce the point that Justin Trudeau is doing the right thing. 

It’s possible — easy, even — to pick apart the Trudeau government’s new plan to tax carbon emissions in provinces that refuse to do the job themselves. Many environmentalists will point out that it isn’t ambitious enough to go very far toward fighting the effects of climate change, and they will be right.

For while we need to do more to fight climate change, and prepare to adapt to the changes it will bring.

To do nothing would be worse. 

Even with the federal carbon tax, starting at $20 a tonne next year and rising to $50 by 2022, Canada risks falling short of its targets on climate change, by the government’s own admission. Carbon pricing in the way the government has chosen to do it is a timid first step. 

But if the government gives up even that in the face of opposition, it has no hope at all of making progress. It has chosen to stand and fight on this issue, and it is right to do so.

And all I can say is that in a world full of scummy Con climate change deniers, and dirty old Trudeau haters.

I'm grateful that the young generation whose future is at stake, have the leader they need.

And the prime minister they deserve...