Liberal platform contains no alternative to federal carbon tax
PCs slam Susan Holt’s claim that she’ll persuade Ottawa to approve a different system for consumer emissions
New Brunswick Liberals have released a full campaign platform that contains no specific plan for how to address one of their biggest political liabilities: the federal carbon tax.
Leader Susan Holt says she'll work to persuade the federal government to let her adopt an alternative to the federal price, which this year is adding 17.6 cents to the price of a litre of gasoline.
"That's a conversation that we'll need to have with Ottawa," she told reporters.
Earlier this year, Holt promised "a bold made-in-New Brunswick plan that reflects our local reality and opportunities" if she becomes premier — reflecting that many residents don't have an alternative to driving cars and trucks that produce carbon dioxide emissions.
'I'm not Brian Gallant,' Holt says
A previous Liberal premier, Brian Gallant, attempted to make that argument to the Trudeau government in 2017 and 2018, when he crafted a provincial carbon price with a built-in rebate.
But Ottawa rejected that, and imposed its own price, because it didn't comply with the national climate plan's pricing standard.
"I'm not Brian Gallant and this isn't Brian Gallant's model, so we're going to bring something different to the feds," Holt said Thursday after releasing her full platform.
The federal carbon price is designed to nudge consumer behaviour away from burning fossil fuels by gradually raising the cost of consumption — while providing rebates after the fact.
Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs has brushed off the rebates and complained that the tax adds to the cost of living.
He has repeatedly assailed Holt for not standing up to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the issue, tying her to Trudeau's unpopularity.
Holt opposed the most recent scheduled increase to the carbon tax in April.
But she was not able to articulate on Thursday what she might put in place as premier that would remove the 17.6-cent charge from the pumps while still complying with the federal requirement.
"We're going to go to Ottawa with a clear ask of what we want our industrial price to be, what we're looking to do incentivize and support new Brunswickers to change their behaviour … and I am expecting a willingness to have the conversation from the federal government," Holt said.
The national plan requires both a fuel charge for consumers and an industrial price, unless a province adopts an alternative such as a cap-and-trade system used in Quebec.
The Green Party has promised to adopt that mechanism, which they say shifts more of the cost of emissions to industry.
The existing New Brunswick industrial price, known as an output-based pricing system, has been accepted by Ottawa, even though critics say it's not stringent enough.
Holt said it needs to be more "robust" but provided no detail of what she'd propose on the consumer side.
PC candidate Glen Savoie said Holt's answers aren't consistent with her attempts to distance herself from Trudeau.
"Susan Holt has run around everywhere saying she's never had a conversation with this prime minister, but yet somehow she's going to convince him to take off the consumer portion of the carbon tax?" Savoie said.
"This is just more Liberal strategy to confuse voters."
Savoie also questioned the overall costing of Holt's platform, pointing out that it appears to count a portion of harmonized sales tax revenue twice.
The PCs have promised to cut the HST by two points, to 13 per cent, at an eventual annual cost of $450 million in lost revenue.
The Liberal platform costing table shows that revenue being added back onto the provincial total – but the total already assumes a 15 per cent HST, meaning the $450 million is being counted twice.
Savoie said either the Liberals have made a major accounting error or are planning to raise the HST by another two points to 17 per cent.
"They need to come clean with New Brunswickers about what this is actually going to mean," he says.
"It tells me that as per usual, Liberals are not going to put out anything that gives a transparent fiscal accounting of what their election promises are actually going to be."
Without the double-counting of the HST revenue, the Liberal costing would show budget deficits.
In an email statement, the Liberals didn't dispute the revenue is being counted twice but pointed out that Higgs's HST math doesn't add up either.
The PC leader hasn't said clearly how he would avoid cutting services without that $450 million in revenue, talking in vague terms about finding better ways to manage government finances.
"Premier Higgs has said he can reduce the HST without impacting the deficit," the Liberals said in a statement.
"We thought that should be reflected in the costing to give a sense of what surplus surprise the government is expecting."
The 30-page Liberal platform document is the first full platform from any of the three major parties campaigning for the Oct. 21 election.
It recaps the party's major promises to date and adds some new ones.
But it also omits some of the ideas that were approved by members at a Liberal policy convention in February, including lowering the voting age to 16 and convening a "citizens' assembly" to discuss electoral reform.
Holt said Thursday that she was open to the idea, which was opposed by several sitting Liberal MLAs who attended and voted at the policy convention.
"That discussion is happening now with candidates and, actually, with folks from other parties," Holt said.
"That's something we're not prepared to promise in an electoral platform like this, but those are conversations that are going to continue."
She said the party chose to focus the platform on issues that are clearly priorities for New Brunswickers.
Vivian Unger, a party member who introduced the resolution on electoral reform at the February convention, said it was disappointing that electoral reform and a lower voting age were excluded.
"Those are both things that will improve democracy, and they are things that the members voted on," she said.
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