OTTAWA — The three frontrunners in the Liberal leadership race have all backed away — to one degree or another — from the Liberal government's keystone climate policy in a bid to take a major Conservative line of attack off the table.
The Liberals first campaigned on a carbon price in 2008 and moved to make it happen following Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's election win in 2015.
It was first implemented in 2019 and is a critical piece of the federal climate plan. It also has been a political football and a favourite target of Conservative attacks.
Liberal leadership candidates Chrystia Freeland, Karina Gould and Mark Carney have all cooled on consumer carbon pricing in recent weeks.
Freeland, who launched her campaign Sunday, is indicating she will abandon consumer carbon pricing altogether, acknowledging that Canadians don't want it.
"That's what the people are saying to us, and democracy is about listening to people," Freeland said Monday on CP24's Breakfast, indicating she still supports industrial carbon pricing.
An analysis published in March 2024 by the Canadian Climate Institute found Canada’s carbon price could slash greenhouse gas emissions by more than 100 million tonnes a year by 2030, but only about one-fifth of that would come from the consumer carbon price.
Most of that reduction would come from putting a price on emissions from big industry, including oil and gas.
Freeland has defended the government's carbon policy for years. Through 2021 and 2022, the former deputy prime minister rose several times in the House of Commons to defend the policy, saying at one point the price on pollution is "by far the most economically effective way to achieve climate action."
"In my view there's only one reason why any current Liberal would start distancing themselves from the carbon price, and that is that the opposition is making headway in fighting against the carbon tax," said Chris Ragan, the founding director of McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy.
"And for some reason, it seems to me they're probably doing it because they think it's going to help their leadership prospects, or their subsequent election prospects."
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has pitched the upcoming election as almost a referendum on carbon pricing and the Conservative Party has launched ads attacking Liberal leadership contenders for defending the policy. Freeland's campaign pushed back against that narrative on Monday.
"Andrew’s mad he’s now stuck with boxes of ‘axe the tax’ election merch," Freeland's camp posted on X, in response to a post by Conservative MP Andrew Scheer highlighting Freeland's previous defence of carbon pricing.