Q&A: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on affordability in Canada

From housing to food prices to the carbon tax, affordability is proving to be a key issue for Canadians.

As the next federal budget draws near, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined host Jeff Douglas amid a series of announcements that provide a glimpse of what his government has in store.

Some of the questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

LISTEN | Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's full interview with Mainstreet:

The carbon tax rebate is there to encourage people to make greener choices, to choose to reduce their carbon emissions. But for many Canadians — especially in rural areas — those choices don't exist. Are we going to see something in the budget that addresses this?

We as a country have, for decades, not hit our carbon targets because governments have all said, 'Oh yes, we're signing on to international agreements,' and we've never actually been able to reduce our emissions because we haven't been able to uncouple economic growth from emissions going up. That's just the way it's always worked.

We got elected. We realized, OK, it's time a government actually attacked climate change and started reducing our emissions. But the problem — and why other governments had never done it — is because it always ends up landing on the middle class, on people who are having a hard time making ends meet. And you tell them, OK, you're going to have to change. It always costs a little more. So we designed the price on pollution systems so that yes, there is now an extra charge on polluting fuels, whether it's gas or home heating or whatever.

But we're going to return that rebate to Canadians and the amount works out so your average families ... and particularly low-income families, you are getting back more with the Canada carbon rebate then it costs you on average with that extra price on pollution. So we're fighting climate change and bringing people along. In rural areas, we recognize that and gave a 10 per cent top up. Now, incidentally, we just chose to boost that top up to 20 per cent, but that's being blocked in the House by Pierre Poilievre and his Conservatives, who are preventing the money from getting to rural families right ... because they don't like anything to do with the price on pollution.

So what we're doing is putting more money in people's pockets. Now what that means is if you can't do anything to change your pollution profile as a family, you're still going to be better off for eight out of 10 in cases across the country. If you can make slightly better choices, the amount of that rebate is larger because you're paying less in the price on pollution, so it encourages indirectly for people to make better choices. 

For people to make these greener choices, are you making any concrete investments there?

We've had green home initiatives that'll give you supports and rebates on various initiatives whether it's insulation or a new furnace. One of the things we did that we recognized is the price signal of the price on pollution wasn't enough, wasn't big enough, wasn't clear enough to help the low income people who still rely on heating oil to be able to change their furnaces because we're talking about a $20,000 outlay.

So we suspended the price on pollution on home heating oil because it's dirtier and more expensive, and more vulnerable households tend to use it, and we're giving free heat pumps across Atlantic Canada and, indeed, across the country to low-income families, there's already 12,000 or so in Nova Scotia that are signed up for it. You get the $250 bonus once you do it.

So we're making it easy for people to make massive savings in their bill regardless of the carbon price. It actually is less expensive to heat with the heat pump.

Why is carbon pricing such a hard sell?