No more carve-outs coming, Trudeau tells Canadians hoping for carbon tax pause on all home heating types
CTV
The federal government will not be offering any more carve-outs to the carbon pricing policy beyond the plan to pause the tax on home heating oil, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday, doubling down on comments his natural resources minister made.
The federal government will not be offering any more carve-outs to the carbon pricing policy beyond the plan to pause the tax on home heating oil, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday, doubling down on comments his natural resources minister made.
"There will absolutely not be any other carve-outs or suspensions of the price on pollution," Trudeau said. "This is designed to phase out home heating oil, the way we made a decision to phase out coal… This is specifically about ending the use of home heating oil, which is more polluting, more expensive, and impacts low-income Canadians to a greater degree."
In a scrum with reporters on his way into a cabinet meeting earlier Tuesday, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson faced a series of questions about the Liberals' three-year pause on the federal carbon tax on home heating oil.
Asked whether the government is considering the calls coming from across the country and political spectrum to expand the affordability break across all forms of home heating, the answer was no.
"There will be no more carve-outs coming," Wilkinson said.
On Thursday, Trudeau announced the temporary break for households who use home heating oil, a move that primarily will assist Atlantic Canadians, alongside plans to double the pollution price rebate rural top-up rate, and to roll out new incentives to make it more affordable for those using heating oil to transition to heat pumps.
"Home heating oil is significantly more expensive. It has escalated significantly in the last couple of years," said Wilkinson, who is a B.C. MP. "It is predominantly a rural thing… there is a lot of energy poverty concentrated with people who actually use home heating oil. We have actually come up with a solution to get them off of that, and to reduce their overall expenditures."
