Poilievre’s 1950s fantasy draws cheers in Surrey

To hear Pierre Poilievre talk, as I did along with about 5,000 others in a steamy Surrey warehouse last night, the Conservative leader is running against two opponents in his bid to become prime minister: Mark Carney, Canada’s current PM and Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s former environment and climate change minister. 

Although Poilievre referenced the ongoing trade war and sovereignty threats by U.S. President Donald Trump, he spent far more time lashing out at the evil Liberal architects of the carbon tax. Life, he said, has never been more expensive because of the Liberals, led by “net-zero extremists Carney and Guilbeault.”

I know, I know. Carney got rid of the tax on fossil fuels burned by individual Canadians the very first day he held office. But Poilievre is pushing the narrative that if the Liberals win, it will be back in a heartbeat. 

“If, God forbid, they get back in, Carney will bring back in a bigger, meaner carbon tax,” Poilievre told the crowd.

There’s no indication this is true, but his supporters believe him. Before Poilievre’s stump speech began, Dan Shenk told me with great certainty that Carney will reintroduce the tax if victorious. “I can’t afford 30 cents a litre more for gas,” said the Prince George owner of a pilot car and hot shot company with about 50 employees. “Carney will bring it back and shut down industry in Canada.”

Never mind the fact that the federal carbon pricing system refunded the tax collected through rebates that left most Canadians better off than they otherwise would have been. Forget also that the steady “axe the tax” drumbeat from Poilievre over the past years has so successfully poisoned Canadians against the policy that no politician in their right mind would touch it with a 10-foot pole.

Still, judging by the thunderous applause from the crowd at every mention of “axe the tax,” Poilievre is still getting good mileage on this note, at least in this neck of B.C., an area rich in swing ridings that resembles Ontario’s crucial 905 region.

I was ready for Poilievre’s “axe the tax” refrain. But what surprised me was how much further he takes his attack on all manner of climate policy. Poilievre may not be an all-out climate denier. But he sure talks like one.

“They told us if we got rid of the carbon tax, the entire planet would light on fire,” he said, adding the last he heard, “water puts out fires, not taxes.”

Now, maybe Canadians already know not to look to a Conservative government for any attempt to reduce Canada’s carbon emissions. But Poilievre is pushing an agenda that sounds decidedly Trumpian when it comes to dismantling environmental protections and carbon pollution reduction measures.

He’s promising to blast the Impact Assessment Act, a federal law designed to scrutinize development projects to ensure they don’t unduly harm the environment. Poilievre writes off the act holus-bolus, calling it an “anti-energy and resource law,” and at other times, the “no pipelines act.” He will kill plans for an emissions cap that would force highly polluting industries to draw down their emissions to a certain level or failing that, pay a penalty that would go to a federally-run decarbonization fund or something along those lines.

And like Trump, the Conservatives are pretty much promising to do the bidding of fossil fuel corporations who have been lobbying all parties for emergency measures to expand in the name of Canada’s national interest. Poilievre promises to build more pipelines and expand Canada’s liquefied natural gas industry and open more mines. He wants to do it fast, and will if pesky regulations are in the way — bam — get rid of them. That got the crowd cheering and chanting the Trump mantra, “drill, baby, drill.”

Now Carney, it must be said, has not closed the door on new pipelines and is also promising to move quickly on resource development and infrastructure projects to strengthen Canada’s economy, currently under siege from our nasty southern neighbour. But Carney connects the dots between carbon pollution and the increase in world temperatures causing catastrophic fires and floods. And while I don’t believe for a second he’ll bring back the carbon tax he recently struck down, I do believe he’ll find other ways to move Canada down a cleaner path. 

He’ll do it because as much as this is important for the survival of humans on Earth, it also makes good business sense. Soon Europe will start charging import levies on countries that don’t have a price on carbon — so our export-dependent industries will be paying a carbon price whether we have one or not. As China is proving with its massive build out of solar energy and shift to electric vehicles, the future lies in clean energy. 

Poilievre makes no mention of that, and frankly, it makes him seem a bit out of touch. I saw EVs pulling up driven by people attending the rally and you can bet some of the folks living in new Surrey highrises are enjoying air conditioning courtesy of heat pumps. Change is coming, and much of it is for the better.

It seems to me that folks at the rally — save one hostile looking man who said he was ashamed of Canada and hoped Trump would invade — were suburbanites stressed about affordability, particularly the cost of housing, which no government has been able to curtail. I have real sympathy for Canadians like Shenk, who says friends and relatives laid off by shuttered B.C. sawmills are begging him for jobs he doesn’t have to offer. 

Poilievre promises Shenk and the rest of his supporters an instant fix, a walk back in time all the way to the fifties, a decade of prosperity when middle-class home ownership was a given, drugs were not killing so many and we could burn hydrocarbons with impunity, blissfully ignorant of the consequences.

Poilievre can’t make good on those promises, particularly with a trade war brewing that threatens to tip our economy into a recession. Carney summed it up this week when he acknowledged there is “no silver bullet” and urged Canadians to brace themselves for tough days ahead. The truth is hard, but it’s better than Poilievre’s empty promises.