When Sarah Morin hears the phrase “axe the tax,” she thinks of “freedom.
A 41-year-old stay-at-home mother of two who has been using a food bank due to high living costs.
She was among the crowded attendees at a convention center near Ottawa’s airport on Sunday to listen to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. Pierre Poilievre: His main cause is the Conservative party’s promise to eliminate the Liberal government’s consumer carbon price. speak.
With the price set to rise by $15 per tonne on April 1, Poilievre has spent the last month hosting rallies and releasing new ads urging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to cancel the increase.
During his latest event, a clock projected on the wall counted down the time until the carbon price increases, while rallygoers waved “axe the tax” signs and Poilievre wore a T-shirt with the slogan.
But what do those three words actually mean to those who chant them?
“Freedom,” Morin told The Canadian Press.
Although she has supported the Conservatives in the past, Morin said she wouldn’t have attended an event like Sunday’s if anyone other than Poilievre was leading it.
“Axing the tax — it means that I have a chance, that there’s a chance that my family and I are going to survive.”
“I feel like he understands Canadians,” she said.
For 53-year-old John James, the phrase simply means that “everything is too expensive” and signals people cannot afford to live in their homes or pay their mortgages.
A woman named Alissa, who declined to provide her last name, said the slogan refers to her income-tax payments as a minimum-wage worker who works over 40 hours a week.
Another young man joked that “axe the tax” underscores the need to bring down “the cost of clearly everything.”
This illustrates the sentiments driving voters toward Poilievre as the Liberals struggle to convince Canadians they have the affordability crisis in hand, and while he has successfully turned their signature climate policy into an affordability one.
Entering spring, Poilievre has spent much of his time outside of Parliament campaigning across the country and on social media to maintain momentum as he rides high in public opinion polls.
He is focusing on regions where his support runs deep, such as an upcoming rally in Edmonton, where the party aims to regain two seats lost to the Liberals and NDP in the 2021 federal vote.
But Poilievre is also targeting regions where he believes he smells success, like in Windsor, where a rally is scheduled for Saturday.
He also held a series of events across Atlantic Canada.
After Liberal MPs from that region cautioned that people were feeling a major affordability crunch, Ottawa announced its first — and only — significant exemption to the policy.
Trudeau revealed in the fall that the government would cease collecting the carbon price on home heating oil for three years, as most households in the region rely on it.
Poilievre’s on-the-road campaign approach has become more sophisticated recently.
Before the event in Ottawa, the party sent out a robocall message from Poilievre to locals’ phones and followed up with a text message prompting people to provide their emails and postal codes.
Gathering names through petitions is an important part of Poilievre’s political operations.
Trudeau himself, along with other ministers, has admitted his success in tapping into people’s fears and anxieties and directing that towards the government’s main climate policy.
Keith Stewart, senior energy strategist at Greenpeace Canada, thinks that the battle Poilievre is fighting is an unjust one based on “half-truths” about carbon pricing.
He mentioned that he attempted to attend one of Poilievre’s rallies in Toronto, but he was removed by security for holding up a Greenpeace banner.
According to Stewart, the Conservative approach has many missing parts, such as the fact that climate change itself ends up costing Canadians more because of disasters like wildfires and drought.
Additionally, he pointed out that Canadians also receive money back through quarterly rebate checks that are more generous for low-income households.
But Stewart noted that the Liberals have failed to promote that aspect of their policy, and it can be difficult for Canadians to discern if they’ve received the payments.
Last month, the Liberals announced they were trying to address that by rebranding the quarterly payments as the “Canada Carbon Rebate” instead of the “Climate Action Incentive.”
“The Liberals have done a terrible job communicating.”
Poilievre has ridiculed the “rebrand” and attempted to cause trouble for the Liberals in Parliament.
He pushed for a vote of no confidence in the House of Commons over carbon pricing last week. It was unsuccessful. The NDP and Bloc Québécois both support the policy.
The move prompted Stewart and other environmental groups to sign an open letter against politicians “shamelessly exploiting Canadians’ very real economic pain for political gain.”
This week, it was economists’ turn.
A group of economists from universities across the country released an open letter expressing support for carbon pricing as an example of an economically sensible policy to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions at a “low cost” to Canadians and businesses.
“Unfortunately, the most vocal opponents of carbon pricing are not offering alternative policies to reduce emissions and meet our climate goals,” it reads.
The letter, signed by a little more than 100 academics as of Tuesday afternoon, doesn’t mention Poilievre by name, but tries to debunk some of his frequent claims about the carbon price.
“And they certainly aren’t offering any alternatives that would reduce emissions at the same low cost as carbon pricing.”
Poilievre is not alone in his opposition. Seven provincial leaders, including New Brunswick’s Blaine Higgs and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe, are asking Trudeau to forgo the April 1 increase.
Higgs, Moe and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith have written to the House of Commons finance committee requesting to appear as witnesses.
A recent report from the Canadian Climate Institute shows that while Trudeau’s consumer carbon price is expected to have some impact in reducing emissions, the price for industrial emitters will have much greater impact.
Poilievre hasn’t yet said whether he plans to touch that plank of the policy.
Kate Harrison, a vice-chair at Summa Strategies and conservative activist, said she believes that unless there are major economic shifts, Poilievre will continue with his attacks through the next federal election, which must happen no later than 2025.
She implied in a recent interview that he is firm in his beliefs.
Erin O’Toole, who became the leader after a 2019 campaign where the Conservative party faced questions about climate change, proposed a Conservative form of carbon pricing — much to the concern of his caucus and the party’s base.
“There was a real reluctance with previous Conservative leaders to take a hard line on this because, frankly, Canadians still care about environmental issues.”
According to Fred DeLorey, who managed the Tories’ 2021 campaign, high inflation was not a factor in the 2019 race.
He said it’s the perfect background and the ideal time for Poilievre to create a divide on consumer carbon pricing.
He mentioned, “You can connect it to the increase in the cost of everything. Whether it's accurate or not — it's not important,”.
DeLorey said it's beneficial that Poilievre is a skilled public speaker.
With the carbon price set to rise by $15 per tonne on April 1, Pierre Poilievre has spent the past month holding rallies and launching new ads urging to “spike the hike.”
“Not anyone could pull off what he’s doing.”
