Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre will hold a rally against the carbon tax in Yellowknife on Sunday, September 8, the party says.
According to the party’s website, Poilievre was in Victoria on Tuesday and plans to speak in Vancouver on Thursday.
An event listing on the same website shows him holding an “axe the tax” rally at Yellowknife’s Explorer Hotel from 11:45am on Sunday.
The Western Arctic Conservative electoral district association, which runs the party’s affairs in the NWT, promoted the event on its Facebook page.
This will be Poilievre’s first public event in the city since assuming the party leadership.
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His campaign to end the carbon tax, which the federal Liberal government has billed as a means of pricing carbon pollution to help mitigate the effects of a warming climate, is central to Conservative efforts to win the next election, which must be held on or before October 20, 2025.
The Liberal government – and the NWT government, which has its own version of the tax designed to meet federal parameters – have each said the average family ends up slightly better off with the tax, through systems of rebates and cost-of-living offsets, than without it. (Even so, the GNWT has said it would scrap the tax given the choice.)
Poilievre has said the tax is “hurting northern Canadians who have no choice but to drive trucks and heat homes.”
In July, the Conservatives confirmed Kimberly Fairman will be their NWT candidate at the next federal election after a drawn-out appeal process delayed the party’s finalization of her candidacy by weeks.
The Liberals must choose a candidate to succeed Michael McLeod, the territory’s MP since 2015, who has said he will step down. The NDP candidate will be Kelvin Kotchilea, who placed second behind McLeod in 2021.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have each visited the NWT in the past year or so, both to inspect the impact of last year’s wildfires and for other purposes – in Trudeau’s case a housing announcement and in Singh’s case a proposal to cap food prices at grocery stores.
