Trudeau accuses Conservatives of misleading Canadians on carbon rebate for 'narrow political gain'

Over the past number of years, I have sat down with every premier in the country to talk about everything that we are doing together to fight climate change and everything we need to continue to do, not just to fight climate change, but to put more money in the pockets of Canadians. Conservative premiers across this country are misleading. Canadians are not telling the truth. 8 out of 10 families across the country in federal backstop jurisdictions make more money with the Canada carbon rebate than it costs with the price on pollution. So not only are we fighting climate change and reducing emissions, but we’re putting more money back in the pockets of families, particularly in low and middle income families across the country. It’s basic math that the Parliamentary Budget Officer has confirmed time and time again, But for ideological reasons or reasons of pure partisanship, Conservative politicians across this country are not telling the truth to Canadians. And that’s why I called them out. And I’m going to continue to call them out and remind them that if they really don’t like our approach to pricing pollution, they can develop their own approach here in BC. That’s what ABC more Conservative government did years ago in creating Canada’s first price on pollution. Quebec did the same. Now, we expect everyone to hit a level, the same level of ambition in the fight against climate change, because that’s fair and that’s important if we’re going to actually make a difference in the extreme weather events that we’re seeing across the country and around the world that are coming. So yes, people need to fight climate change, but any province that wants to put forward a similarly similarly robust way to fight climate change but do it in a way that works for them is more than welcome to and has been from the very beginning of our price on pollution. But Conservative premiers in general would rather complain and attack and mislead Canadians for narrow political gain because of both an ideological objection, apparently, to fighting climate change, but also to an unwillingness to recognize that we are putting more money in people’s pockets with rebate checks that Pierre Polyev wants to take away from Canadians. And to put an even clearer point on it, we announced a doubling of the rural top up that hits millions of Canadians across the country. And that’s being held up in the House of Commons by Pierre Polyev and his Conservative Party that are preventing that doubling of the rural top up money in the pockets of Canadian living in rural communities across the country from having that money to help with the high cost of living on every different level. That’s irresponsible by Conservative premiers, and I’m going to continue to call out all conservative politicians who are doing that.