Conservative leadership candidate and GreenPAC endorsee Michael Chong (CPC-Wellington-Halton Hills) drew boos at a party debate last weekend when he defended his proposed revenue-neutral carbon tax as the cheapest and “most conservative” way to meet Canada’s greenhouse gas reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement.
“If we’re going to win the next election, we need to have a credible position to reduce emissions,” Chong told about 250 participants at the informal gathering in Vancouver. “If we do not have a credible plan to reduce emissions, we will lose.”
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Leadership rival Erin O’Toole (CPC-Durham), a former veterans’ affairs minister under former PM Stephen Harper, critiqued Chong’s plan, declaring that he was “not in this race to out-Liberal the Liberals.”
Candidate and ex-MP Andrew Saxton promised that “as prime minister of Canada, I will axe the [carbon] tax,” adding that “we have to have a harmonized plan with the United States in order to have an effective way to bring down greenhouse gases.”
