Ottawa, ON – Phillip Lawrence, Conservative Shadow Minister of Transport, and Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative Shadow Minister of Finance, released the following statement on Trudeau’s inflationary carbon tax:

“After nine years of Justin Trudeau, life costs more, and work doesn’t pay. The Liberal Government’s carbon tax has driven up the cost of everything. Families are having to pay $700 more for food this year than they did in 2023, forcing Canadians to eat less, skip meals and buy less healthy food just to make ends meet. Millions of people now line up outside of food banks, including one in ten people in Toronto.

“Trudeau just doesn’t understand that if you tax the farmer who makes the food and the trucker who ships the food, you end up taxing the Canadian who buys the food.

“According to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, Trudeau’s carbon tax added $2 billion to trucking costs this year, a number that will rise to $4 billion in 2030. But these numbers just account for long-haul trucking. The total amount of money that Trudeau’s carbon tax is costing the trucking industry is likely significantly higher.

“As the Canadian Trucking Alliance wrote, ‘these added costs cannot be absorbed [by truckers] and must be passed on to customers.’ That means Canadian families are once again picking up the bill for Trudeau’s punishing taxes.

“Despite presiding over a cost of living crisis, Trudeau refuses to cancel his inflationary carbon tax. In fact, this spring, Trudeau increased the carbon tax by 23 percent, as part of his plan to quadruple the tax to 61 cents per litre by 2030.  He did this even though 70 percent of Canadians wanted Trudeau to cancel his carbon tax increase. As a direct result of this, the Fraser Institute has reported that the carbon tax will cost the average Canadian worker $6,700 by 2030. It will also reduce Canada’s GDP by 6.2 percent by 2030, resulting in 164,000 fewer jobs.

“Enough is enough. Jagmeet Singh must join with Common Sense Conservatives in calling for a carbon tax election. Only then can a Pierre Poilievre government axe the tax and bring home powerful paycheques for all Canadians.”