Poilievre seizes on Simpson’s reasserted carbon tax opposition

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre on Sunday used some of the new NWT premier’s opening remarks at a national level to reiterate his call for the carbon tax to be scrapped.

Interviewed on national CBC television by Rosemary Barton, RJ Simpson – elected premier on Thursday – set out the NWT’s long-held position that the federally imposed carbon tax does more harm than good in the North.

The resulting CBC News online report – headlined “NWT premier says he wants complete carbon tax exemption for territory” – was screengrabbed by Poilievre and published across social media sites like Facebook and X.

“The Trudeau tax is hurting northern Canadians who have no choice but to drive trucks and heat homes,” Poilievre wrote.

“Axe the tax. For all. For good.”

Ending the carbon tax is a central plank of Poilievre’s campaign to become the next prime minister. Though Poilievre so far hasn’t visited the Northwest Territories as Conservative leader, an MP visited on his behalf last month with the same message.

Interviewed by Barton, Simpson said that “ideally, a complete exemption for the territory” on carbon tax would be the best outcome.

“It doesn’t work for the Northwest Territories,” he said. “This isn’t new messaging from our government. This has been the messaging from the time the carbon tax was introduced.”

While it isn’t new messaging – ever since the territory’s first carbon tax in 2019, it has been opposed by NWT ministers even as they drew up legislation to meet federal requirements – the election of a new premier has given the territory a fresh spotlight with which to make the point.

Outgoing premier Caroline Cochrane’s national appearances as premier in recent months were dominated by the wildfire crisis and its consequences.

Simpson took pains during Sunday’s interview to point out that his government simultaneously wants the carbon tax to go away but believes “climate change is real” and that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced.

He pointed to his own hometown of Hay River’s three evacuations in 16 months – one from a flood, two from wildfires – as evidence of the cost of climate change.

‘Surprise’ at Ottawa’s new exemption

There is some nuance to the exact financial impact of carbon tax on residents.

When it was first introduced, the NWT government said the average family would receive more in rebates and cost-of-living payments than it would pay in carbon tax.

That assertion partly rested on the existence of an exemption for home heating fuel. Any carbon tax paid on residents’ home heating costs received an immediate and full rebate.

But the federal government banned the NWT from continuing that exemption at the end of last year, causing a jump in heating bills. While the territorial government has tried to change cost-of-living offset payments to account for the end of that exemption, shielding residents from the tax – or at least, from eye-watering bills – has become harder.

“I just received my heating oil bill this week for almost a full tank,” one Yellowknife resident wrote to Cabin Radio last week. “The bill was $1,370.10. We are homeowners in YK, we’re also close to retiring but now wonder if we should just keep working. This is the highest bill I’ve ever seen.”

Even Simpson, speaking just before he was elected premier last week, admitted he was “shocked by the cost” of his latest heating bill.

The federal government just announced a three-year pause on home heating oil carbon tax, but that doesn’t take effect in the NWT immediately. Because the NWT has its own version of the carbon tax designed to meet federal rules – rather than just using the federal backstop – the territory must pass legislation that updates its tax to take advantage of that pause.

Since it was in election mode when Ottawa announced the change, new legislation can’t happen until early next year, meaning no relief for NWT residents until then (although relief could feasibly be backdated).

Speaking with Barton, Simpson noted the federal government had removed northerners’ heating fuel exemption, only to introduce a similar exemption of its own months later.

“We were quite surprised to see that although our exemption was removed, another one was put in place,” he said.