The cost of living can't quite obscure the cost of climate change

According to a poll released this week, the cost of living is far and away the biggest concern for Canadians right now.

Thirty-four per cent of respondents to a survey conducted by Leger in late May and early June — commissioned by Clean Prosperity, a climate policy think tank — said inflation should be the top priority for the federal government. Another 23 per cent said it was the second-most important issue.

Climate change, meanwhile, was the most important issue for just 12 per cent of those polled, behind health care (18 per cent) and housing prices (13 per cent).

But it would be a mistake to assume economic and pocketbook concerns have again reduced climate change to a fringe concern.

Inflation and high gas prices make "climate action a tougher sell and particularly tough if the government is seen as prioritizing climate over affordability measures. But I think the right strategy is to pursue both simultaneously," Michael Bernstein of Clean Prosperity said via email this week.

"Put another way — if voters are given a choice between a party that is prioritizing affordability and one prioritizing climate change, I think it's pretty clear they'd choose affordability. But if a party is trying to maximize chances of winning the next election, it should pursue both."

The public's understandable concerns about the day-to-day cost of living explains why Conservatives were so eager to criticize Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland when she suggested recently that high gas prices are "a reminder of why climate action is so important and why, as a country, we have to work even harder and move even faster towards a green economy."

After that comment was clipped and posted to Twitter, Conservative leadership frontrunner Pierre Poilievre tweeted that Freeland had confirmed "that high energy prices are a deliberate policy of the Liberal government." The Conservatives' finance critic and transport critic posted similar messages and the party followed up this week with a video that claimed "high gas prices are exactly what the Liberals want."

The national price on carbon that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government introduced in 2019 does increase the price of fuel and that increase is meant to push consumers and industry toward cleaner and more efficient options. But it's not just an additional levy for the sake of raising prices.

A carbon tax also can account for the environmental damage caused by burning fossil fuels — a cost that is not otherwise accounted for in the market price of oil. Current official estimates put the "social cost of carbon" at about $50 per tonne — equal to the current carbon price in Canada.

Regardless, the federal carbon tax isn't the main driver of current gas prices — it adds about 11 cents per litre, two cents more than it did last year. Conservatives also tend to ignore the fact that nearly all of the revenue from the tax is rebated to households in provinces where the federal policy applies. 

But current concerns about affordability might still offer a warning to Liberals and other proponents of climate action about how understandably sensitive Canadians are to changes in the cost of living. If not for the rebate, the carbon tax could be a much more vulnerable target. Policies like the clean fuel standard might be harder to defend in the years to come. 

Trudeau seemed to want to turn the tables on the Conservatives when he spoke to reporters in Nova Scotia on Thursday.

"There are very few people in this country who still think that you can have a plan for the economy without having a plan for the environment," he said after announcing federal investment in a new wind farm. "Most of those people seem to be running for the Conservative leadership."