Our continuing coverage of Canada’s federal election September 20 carries the #Elxn44 tag. You can use the search engine on our site to find other stories in the series.A border carbon adjustment made an appearance as a campaign issue, parties’ climate platforms came in for renewed scrutiny, and the Liberals’ plan received an accidental endorsement from the Green Party leader and a deliberate one from her former B.C. counterpart as Canada’s federal election entered its second-last week.On the campaign trail, all three major national parties received different degrees of pushback on their climate plans, while the latest in a series of veteran political observers pointed to climate as the wedge issue that could win the election for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.“If anything, climate change politics look more likely to trigger the chain reaction the Liberals need to eke out a win than pandemic-related rhetoric,” wrote Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hébert. “It is one front where there is a clear difference between the Liberals and the Conservatives. That difference is not to [Conservative leader Erin] O’Toole’s advantage.”A Conservative government “would turn the clock back on Canada’s climate change efforts, dialing down its ambitions as well as resuming the push for more pipelines,” Hébert added. “Given that, it would be hard for the New Democrats to spend the second half of the campaign arguing with a straight face that when it comes to the existential environmental question of the era, the Liberals and the Conservatives are one and the same. That contention does not really pass the smell test.”A Star editorial reaches a similar conclusion, noting that O’Toole’s contentious decision to add a carbon price to his campaign platform means his party can no longer be dismissed as “no-shows on climate”. But the Tories’ carbon “levy” (since, as the Star points out, they can’t and won’t call it a tax) starts out at C$20 per tonne and rises to $50,” far lower than the level economists say is needed to change behaviour,” the paper notes. And “from this inadequate starting point the Conservatives would then get seriously weird. Instead of simply rebating the carbon levy to consumers, they propose setting up ‘personal low-carbon savings accounts’ for every Canadian.”
