New Brunswick’s alternative to a federal carbon price would be to eventually ship liquefied natural gas to Europe as an alternative to coal, Premier Blaine Higgs told a House of Commons committee Thursday.
Higgs, appearing virtually before the House operations committee, said there is a business case for the plan, despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s doubts about the viability of shipping LNG from Atlantic Canada.
However, there is only one problem.
“We currently have no gas supply,” Higgs said. “And that is the problem”.
Higgs is one of three premiers who were invited to voice their opposition to carbon pricing at the Conservative-chaired committee after failing to get a response from the Liberal-controlled finance committee.
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe appeared Wednesday, and Higgs and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith spoke back-to-back on Thursday. They are among seven prime ministers who recently called on Trudeau to cancel the carbon price increase planned for April 1, arguing it costs people too much.
Smith called carbon pricing “immoral,” “reckless” and “inhumane,” accusing the Liberals of freezing out Albertans by making natural gas unaffordable. After April 1, the carbon price will end up being more than double the base cost of natural gas itself, he said.
The Liberals, for their part, say those arguments ignore the government’s carbon rebates, which are designed to offset the cost of the carbon price for most families.
The Conservatives and Liberals disagree about the impact of those rebates, although both cite the same recent report from the parliamentary budget officer.
That report found that the rebates do indeed exceed the direct costs of the carbon price borne by most families, but not once the impact of the carbon price on jobs and wages is taken into account.
Liberals rule out the latter, arguing that ignoring the climate crisis would have an even greater economic cost.
When asked about the prime ministers this week, Trudeau twice accused them of lying to Canadians about the carbon price.
“Facts matter,” he said Thursday in Vancouver. “Prime ministers, specifically the Conservatives, are misleading Canadians.”
Earlier this week, Trudeau also wrote to those prime ministers inviting them to suggest alternatives to the federal carbon price that would achieve the same results.
Higgs told the committee Thursday that he had one.
Canadian natural gas shipped to replace dirtier coal in overseas power plants would have a bigger impact on global emissions than the price of carbon, he said. Coal produces more emissions when burned than natural gas.
“So my plea here goes beyond partisan lines to say: Let’s think big,” Higgs said.
“Let’s look at Canada as a solution to environmental impacts, changes and reductions in the world, rather than focusing exactly on our domestic affordability and everyday costs of living.”
Higgs has long advocated shale gas development in New Brunswick. The carbon price will barely affect global emissions as long as China keeps building coal plants, he maintains.
He said Canada’s emissions are a drop in the bucket of global emissions and that sending cleaner fuels overseas to replace coal would be a more effective strategy.
“In Canada we’re thinking about a bubble,” Higgs said. “I aim to make a difference around the world.”
Last year, a Spanish company abandoned a proposal to build a natural gas export terminal in Saint John, citing the high costs of shipping gas, which would have to be shipped by pipeline from western Canada.
If New Brunswick produced its own natural gas, that wouldn’t be a problem, Higgs said.
Former Liberal Premier Brian Gallant legislated a moratorium on hydraulic fracking in New Brunswick in 2014. That decision came after violent anti-fracking protests rocked New Brunswick in 2013.
Fracking is a process that pumps large volumes of water and chemicals underground to break up layers of rock and release pockets of gas trapped inside.
Smith was also pressed by Liberal MPs over her province’s decision to increase the provincial gas tax from nine cents to 13 cents per litre, restoring the amount of the previous excise tax the province cut when gas prices were high. .
The provincial gas tax is less than the carbon price, he said: On April 1 the price will add another 3.3 cents per liter of gasoline for a total impact of 17.6 cents per liter.
The province’s tax builds roads, he added. Not the carbon price.
Ontario Liberal MP Irek Kusmierczyk noted that Smith recently attended a “cut taxes” rally with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. Kusmierczyk asked him if he intends to also eliminate his own gasoline tax.
That tax, Kusmierczyk noted, does not include a refund.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 28, 2024.