The carbon tax is (nearly) dead. Now what? [Video]

It might seem like a distant memory now, but it’s worth remembering that every major federal party ran in 2021 on a platform that included a consumer carbon tax.

Nearly every single Liberal, NDP and Conservative MP who currently sits in the House of Commons — up to and including Pierre Poilievre, who now says Canada needs a “carbon tax election” so he can “axe the tax” — won their seat while carrying a commitment to apply a price on carbon. 

The carbon tax had survived both a provincial legal challenge and Doug Ford’s stickers. The Conservative platform in 2021 stated, “We recognize that the most efficient way to reduce our emissions is to use pricing mechanisms.”

But then the Conservative leader whose face was on the cover of that platform, Erin O’Toole, was deposed by his own caucus. And inflation reached eight per cent. And Poilievre was chosen as O’Toole’s successor.

To explain how the carbon tax came to …