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OTTAWA — Federal Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault said Wednesday that the looming threat of a 25-per-cent tariff on all Canadian exports to the United States won’t dissuade him from pursuing an ambitious climate action plan, anchored by the federal carbon tax.
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“Of course, we’re going to continue with the carbon tax because it creates jobs,” Guilbeault told a House of Commons committee studying Canada’s emissions policies. “It helps us to promote investment and reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions.”
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“It is time to stop dithering around with domestic policy that kills our biggest GDP generators and job creators, like the emissions cap, and move with alacrity to support our most productive industries,” said Lisa Baiton, president and CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers on Tuesday in response to Trump’s announcement.
Hours before Guilbeault’s comments, Liberal economic advisor Mark Carney said that Canada should be more aggressive in using energy as a source of leverage in trade negotiations with the U.S.
“We need to be an essential trading partner of theirs,” Carney said at an Ottawa event hosted by the Cardus Institute. “We need them to want to trade with us.”
“And that’s energy,” Carney continued, pointing to Canada’s most powerful bargaining chip versus the U.S.
Former Liberal finance minister Bill Morneau expressed similar sentiments in a television interview earlier this month, discussing the smaller, 10-per-cent tariff that Trump had originally promised during his presidential campaign.
“We’re going to need to think about whether we focus on energy security in a way that makes up clearly an important part of the U.S. sector that way,” said Morneau in reaction to Trump’s election.
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“And that means, we have to ask ourselves, is it really the right time for caps on emissions?”
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