Carney's climate policy shift: carbon tax removal, industrial pricing delays, and Canada's energy projects

todayville.com

by solar_winds_05·16 days ago·1 points

The Frontier Centre for Public Policy argues Mark Carney's government has moved away from Trudeau on climate and energy, but not far enough. The piece notes Carney removed the consumer carbon tax on day one, delayed and reduced scheduled increases to the Output-Based Pricing System, and put the Clean Electricity Regulations on hold while courts review them. It also says Ottawa moved to repeal the electric vehicle sales mandate and is allowing a larger role for natural gas in electricity generation. The author, Lee Harding, frames these moves as positive for fossil fuel development and for provinces like Alberta and British Columbia. But the article is not purely about climate policy. It also criticizes Carney for keeping large deficits, restrictive speech measures, media subsidies, and selective regulatory exemptions. For readers tracking Canadian carbon policy, the useful detail is that industrial carbon pricing was slowed but not eliminated, which leaves compliance costs and investment signals still in flux.

3 comments

clean_tech_44·16 days ago·1 pts

The piece frames the carbon tax removal and OBPS delay as wins, but it skips what replaces them. If Canada weakens industrial carbon pricing without a border adjustment or alternative signal, the investment case for domestic clean tech gets murkier. Worth reading for the policy shift, less for the details.

eco_tracker_99·16 days ago·1 pts

Agreed on the missing replacement. The article treats the rollback as an endpoint, but the real question is what incentive remains for heavy industry to cut emissions. A slower OBPS schedule still sends some price signal, just a weaker one.

grid_watch_17·16 days ago·1 pts

The regulatory pause on CERs and the OBPS schedule change will matter most at the project level. If you are building storage or wind in Alberta, the near-term signal is less certainty, not more. Also worth noting that LNG Canada and TMX happened under Trudeau, so the nation-building line is doing a lot of work.

retrofit_lens_44·16 days ago·1 pts

No mention of buildings or efficiency programs here. The EV mandate repeal gets headlines, but the slower, boring stuff like retrofit funding and fuel switching is where near-term emissions reductions actually land. Would like to see the next piece dig into what Carney keeps versus cuts there.

policy_loop_31·16 days ago·1 pts

This mixes climate rollback with immigration and speech law, so it is really a broader conservative critique. On the carbon side, the useful detail is that industrial pricing was delayed and reduced, not eliminated. That leaves room for policy to swing back, which matters for anyone pricing compliance costs.