Conservative leadership race reopens internal debate about carbon pricing

OTTAWA — Signing a pledge to scrap the federal “carbon tax” used to be a rite of political passage for would-be Conservative party leaders.

Now, a group of leading Conservatives wants the next round of contenders to sign on to a new way of thinking: that without a credible climate change plan, the party can’t win enough seats to form a government.

“If everything is always about the carbon tax, we are not going to push forward,” said former Conservative cabinet minister and one-time leadership hopeful Lisa Raitt, who is part of Conservatives for Clean Growth.

“It’s much bigger than that.”

The group launched this week to help shape the debate during the upcoming leadership race by helping candidates put together ideas on how a Conservative government could get Canada to net-zero carbon emissions.

That doesn’t necessarily mean embracing a carbon tax, said Ken Boessenkool, executive director of the group and former policy adviser to prime minister Stephen Harper.

Some Conservatives believe in carbon pricing, others want to focus on regulation or incentives. The point of their group, he said, is to help each candidate figure out a plan that works.

“I don’t think those plans need to be the same and that’s fine,” he said.

“There are many pathways to get to the objective, the important thing is that we have a credible pathway to get to net-zero.”

The Conservatives have long struggled with crafting climate change policy that passes muster with both their base and the larger voting public.

“Anybody who tells you that a carbon tax is an environmental policy is trying to pull the wool over your eyes,” Harper said during the 2015 election campaign, which the Liberals won while promising to put a price on carbon.

In the Conservatives’ 2017 leadership race, MP Michael Chong ran on a platform that advocated for carbon pricing, arguing that using a market-based mechanism was the most Conservative approach to the issue.

He was the only contestant in a crowded field to do so, and was regularly heckled for suggesting the idea.

That race was won by Andrew Scheer, who subsequently made a promise to kill the Liberal carbon levy a central plank in the party’s 2019 election platform.

Scheer picked up seats for the Tories in that campaign, but many candidates — including Raitt — said they couldn’t hold or win riding around Canada’s major cities without being able to propose a viable alternative.

As party leader, Erin O’Toole tried a different approach in the 2021 election campaign.

He ran on a platform that included a consumer price on carbon, a policy unveiled just after the party’s grassroots had voted down a motion to insert the phrase “climate change is real” into their official policy declaration.

O’Toole told the Conservatives his idea was the only way to break through in ridings they needed to win in order to form a majority government.

But during his own leadership race, O’Toole had signed the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s pledge to cancel the federal carbon pricing program.

While his proposal did pledge to end the federal levy put in place by the Liberals — money collected under his plan would instead flow into savings accounts that Canadians could use to buy environmentally friendly products — it was still seen as a broken promise.

The issue would dog O’Toole for months, one in a list of perceived flip-flops that preceded his ouster as leader last week. Many MPs pointed out his plan of him still did not give the party the breakthrough he’d promised.

In the wake of his dismissal, the Star learned, interim party leader Candice Bergen has told MPs they’re going back to basics.

For now, the Tories will revert to their policy declaration that there should be no federally imposed system of carbon pricing or cap-and-trade program.

What Conservatives might adopt next, she said, needs to be hashed out during their upcoming leadership race.

The race currently has but one contestant, longtime Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre.

While he’s made crystal clear his disdain for carbon pricing, Poilievre’s broader views on the environment and climate change are less clear.

“I’m hopeful that he will see the importance of developing a credible climate plan, as I hope every other entrant into the race feels it important to have a credible climate plan,” Boessenkool said.

Another potential leadership contender said she welcomes the formation of Conservatives for Clean Growth.

“Conservatives need to contribute to the climate conversation,” Tasha Kheiriddin, a longtime Conservative political strategist, wrote on social media.

“Look forward to hearing what the CCG has to say.”