Don Braid: Would Trudeau have the gall to run an election campaign on such a despised tax?

Support for the federal carbon tax continues to collapse like a cheap tent in a high wind.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh’s pathetic waffling isn’t even the biggest rejection this week.

That would be British Columbia Premier David Eby’s startling promise to kill the province’s consumer carbon tax — if the Trudeau Liberals vow not to replace it with the federal version.

Eby and his NDP face the voters on Oct. 19. He could lose to newly merged conservative parties.

His gambit shows how desperate politicians are to flee consumer carbon taxation, especially if they’re anywhere near an election.

Eby’s rationale is ingenious. He says the federal tax has ruined the reputation of B.C.’s system.

“The political consensus that we had in British Columbia has been badly damaged by the approach of the federal government on this issue,” he said.

Very clever. But beneath the rhetoric lies a simple fact — the NDP leader of Canada’s greenest, most compliant province says there should not be a carbon tax.

B.C. is the North American founder of consumer carbon taxation. The provincial levy took effect in 2008, 11 years before the federal tax came into being.

The stand-alone carbon tax was a source of pride for many in B.C. The mood has changed with inflation, high housing costs, and discontent with the aging NDP, in power since 2017.

Former B.C. Green leader Andrew Weaver, the most devoted climate change activist of them all, now says he’ll support the tax-hating Conservatives in the election — because they’re more trustworthy.

If such weirdness can beset B.C., it’s more difficult by the day to imagine the Liberals dragging their carbon tax into another election.

They’re heading into an unstable parliamentary session that could see the government suddenly fall to a confidence vote.

One can picture Prime Minister Justin Trudeau talking to an especially cynical adviser.

“Sir, we have to kill the tax,” this person says.

Trudeau: “I can’t do that. Steven Guilbeault would be so mad. And the voters . . .”

Adviser: “But here’s the thing, Prime Minister. We kill the tax — BUT STILL SEND THE REBATE CHEQUES!”

Trudeau’s tax began with room for provinces to create their own systems, as long as those conformed to federal standards.

That was tried in Alberta, where an NDP version was eventually killed by the United Conservative Party. Ontario had a cap-and-trade system that was ditched.

Atlantic provinces couldn’t come up with a plan that Ottawa approved, so Ottawa imposed the federal version.

As a result, the federal consumer tax rules everywhere but B.C. (now in question), the Northwest Territories, and Quebec.

There’s serious opposition in every federally taxed jurisdictions.

Saskatchewan is still refusing to remit carbon tax on home heating fuel to Ottawa. The Canada Revenue Agency has issued an order to seize $28 million from the province. This will probably be in court for months or years.

Manitoba NDP Premier Wab Kinew also demands exemption from the tax on heating fuel. So did the Alberta NDP.

Those moves followed the infamous admission by minister Gudie Hutchings that Atlantic MPs pressured Trudeau into a carbon tax exemption for home heating oil. You can do it too, she told the West — just elect Liberals.

Premier Doug Ford’s Ontario PCs want to axe the consumer tax, but plan to implement a new provincial system that would face a referendum.

Quebec sits on the sidelines, grinning like the Cheshire cat, because it still uses cap-and-trade that costs consumers far less.

That leaves the separatist Bloc Quebecois free to demand higher carbon tax in the rest of Canada. These are fun times for Leader Yves-Francois Blanchet.

Singh now calls for a new federal NDP tax that would favour the workers. He doesn’t say whether it would be a consumer tax.

That’s a limp offer. Singh’s only clear message is that he wants to get clear of the Liberals he backed for so long.

Trudeau responds by blasting Singh for abandoning climate action.

Is this to be the Liberal campaign – running on a tax so many Canadians have come to loathe, and his own MPs discredit?

Hard to imagine, but Trudeau has never been short on gall.

Don Braid’s column appears regularly in the Herald

X: @DonBraid