Premier David Eby speaks to reporters from his office at the legislature in Victoria on Feb. 18.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Canadian Press
Last week, British Columbia cancelled its consumer carbon-fuel tax, ending something that began as a bold experiment in Canada and around the world. Almost 18 years after the tax established the province as a global leader in the fight against climate change, the province’s leadership has retreated.
B.C. Premier David Eby says it is not his fault. He has blamed, at different times, the federal Liberals, U.S. President Donald Trump and Canada’s Conservative politicians for his decision to abandon the tax. His New Democratic Party was not willing or able, he says, to defend what he maintains was a good environmental policy that had been made “absolutely toxic” by others.
This deflection is part of a pattern by Mr. Eby. We’ll get to that in a minute.
His government dumped the carbon-fuel tax with unseemly haste, bending the rules of the legislature to introduce and pass the required legislation on March 31, so that British Columbians could wake up on April 1 to cheaper gas at the pumps.
It was urgent, Mr. Eby said, because of the Canada-U.S. trade war. “When there are huge pressures that are coming from the threats out of the Trump White House to employment, to economic growth and to affordability for British Columbians and Canadians, it was important for us to recognize that we needed to act quickly to ensure that British Columbians were not having to pay the consumer carbon tax.”
But wait – that’s not the rationale he offered last September, when Mr. Eby first indicated he was willing to scrap the tax. He pointed to the federal Liberals at the time, saying Ottawa had hiked the tax rate when Canadians were stressed by the cost of living, and had provided tax relief for some provinces and not others.
“That didn’t do us any favours here in British Columbia,” he said at the time. “I think it’s really compromised the political license that was there for the carbon tax.”
A key point he failed to mention was that Mr. Eby and the BC NDP were at that time facing a tough election campaign. They were in danger of losing to the BC Conservatives, who were promising to axe the tax.
Mr. Eby moved to take the issue off the table, promising that an NDP government would scrap the tax, too – if the federal government waived the requirement that the provinces have a matching program in place.
The federal Liberals – facing similar political pressures in the election campaign now under way – cancelled the federal tax as of April 1, and with it the federal requirement. Mr. Eby was bound to make good on his campaign promise.
Mr. Eby wasn’t done with deflecting the blame for the demise of the carbon tax, however. Speaking to reporters after his axe-the-tax bill was introduced in the House, he said it was Conservative politicians, both federal and provincial, who killed the carbon tax by convincing Canadians it is contributing to their cost of living challenges.
In reality, low-income British Columbians will have a greater affordability challenge now. The province is cancelling its carbon-tax rebate, a means-tested quarterly payment that provided an average of $485 in tax credits annually. The average British Columbian paid $410 in carbon taxes in the past year, so ordinary British Columbians will be further behind.
Mr. Eby has been known to shift blame for policy decisions that he really ought to own.
The centrepiece of his election platform last fall was a costly attempt to buy votes with taxpayers’ money. A re-elected New Democratic Party government, he promised, would deliver households a $1,000 annual grocery rebate starting in early 2025. But Mr. Eby later bailed on his promise, saying the province can’t afford the measure as it prepares for four years of unpredictability from the United States.
Similarly, the province blamed the threat of tariffs for a record $11-billion deficit in the budget tabled in March. It’s fair to assume that the imposition of broad tariffs by the United States on Canadian goods will knock B.C.’s economy back – if not into recession this year, something close to zero growth. But Mr. Eby’s government had already blown the bank, running up a $9-billion deficit in the previous year.
It’s transparent to voters that Mr. Eby’s fiscal management that has left the cupboard bare. The Premier should end his pattern of deflection and start taking responsibility for his actions.