OTTAWA — A federal advisory panel will unveil a long-term climate-change strategy Monday that is expected to back the idea of a carbon tax aimed at substantially reducing greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, The Globe and Mail has learned.
The proposal will put pressure on both the Harper government and the Liberal Opposition, which have rejected a carbon tax that would penalize oil producers in the West most heavily.
The recommendation will raise a number of questions on Parliament Hill; specifically, whether a carbon tax is inevitable, who would collect the revenue, and how much a tonne of carbon is worth.
The carbon-tax recommendation will be included as one of many in a 50-page report to be issued by the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy.
The roundtable's report will offer up a series of scenarios for reaching certain targets by the year 2050. The report will offer suggestions aimed at bringing down greenhouse gases by 65 per cent by the year 2050, based on 2003 levels.
Sources would not say how broadly the panel believes a carbon tax could be applied.
Generally speaking, a carbon-tax measure would be designed to increase the cost of burning fossil fuels such as oil and gas. Such a tax could target industry or consumers.
Last year, the Quebec government presented Canada's first carbon tax, calling on energy producers, distributors and refiners to pay about $200-million a year in taxes. The money funds the province's efforts to meet emission targets set for 2012 in the Kyoto Protocol, calling for a 6-per-cent reduction below 1990 levels.
Monday's report will discuss other measures for bringing down greenhouse gases, such as conservation measures, fuel efficiency and carbon-trading systems.
A carbon-trading system sets caps on the amount of pollutants companies can emit and then forces overpolluters to pay levies to companies that pollute less.
In effect, a trading system forces a polluter to pay a penalty, while rewarding those who cut back on emissions.
A number of politicians in Canada have shied away from the idea of a carbon tax, although deputy Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff suggested the measure in the 2006 leadership race.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper sharply rejected the idea, saying a carbon tax would be akin to the national energy program that penalized the West when it was introduced by the Liberals in 1980.
“That is something this government will never do,” Mr. Harper said in 2006.
Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, a former minister of the environment, also criticized the idea of a carbon tax.
“I've always been against it. I will have other ways to get there,” Mr. Dion said during the Liberal leadership race.
The Roundtable on the Environment is dedicated to finding ways to integrate environmental conservation and economic development. Recently, it was asked to provide advice to the government on how to most effectively reduce greenhouse gases.
Its membership is made up of academics, environmentalists, labour leaders and officials from corporate Canada, among other sectors, including Simon Fraser economist Mark Jaccard, a well-known proponent of a carbon tax.
Last September, the roundtable said that the Conservative government was unlikely to meet its environmental targets with its current slate of programs.
From ecoEnergy for renewable power, to the ecoAuto rebate program and the central regulations for heavy industry, the roundtable concluded the government's expected reductions from its list of climate-change programs were a “likely overestimate.”
