Carney Playing Same Old Political Games, Carbon Tax Cut is a Pause

Mark Carney has barely settled into his new role as Prime Minister, and already, we’re seeing the same old political games. The latest? His big announcement on his first day about “ending” the carbon tax. Headlines declared it dead. His supporters praised him for taking bold action. But if you take five minutes to read beyond the press release, you’ll realize it’s not dead at all. Not even close.

Here’s the truth: Carney didn’t repeal the carbon tax. He didn’t scrap the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, which is the legislation that gives the federal government the power to impose and raise the carbon tax whenever they want. All he did was press pause. The infrastructure is still in place. The federal government still holds the power to reinstate the tax at any time—and raise it to whatever level suits their political needs. So, has the carbon tax really been axed? No. It’s sitting on a shelf, waiting to be dusted off.

That’s not leadership. It’s spin. And it’s not a great start for a guy who was supposed to bring intelligence and pragmatism back to Ottawa.

If Carney were serious about eliminating the carbon tax, he would have done one thing: repealed the law. Take away the federal government’s power to impose it in the first place. Without the law, there’s no tax. Without the law, there’s certainty. But Carney isn’t willing to give that up. Why? Because he knows it’s a useful tool to have on standby. Useful leverage. Useful optics. That’s how politics works in Ottawa.

But in the real world—the world where businesses are trying to make long-term plans and families are trying to stay afloat—this kind of uncertainty is toxic. If you run a company that depends on fuel or transportation, how do you budget for the next five years when you have no idea if or when the carbon tax is coming back? How do you decide whether to expand your operation or put it on hold? The same goes for farmers, truckers, manufacturers—anyone whose bottom line gets squeezed by unpredictable government policy.

The uncertainty alone has a cost. And Carney’s announcement guarantees more uncertainty.

Let’s be clear: the carbon tax has never been about environmental outcomes. If it was, we’d have some evidence by now that it’s working. But emissions have barely budged in Canada, even after years of punishing taxes on fuel and heating. Meanwhile, countries like China and India are building coal plants at a record pace. Our carbon tax sacrifices don’t move the needle globally. What they do is make life harder here at home.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer—the government’s own independent financial watchdog—has said this repeatedly. Their reports show that the vast majority of Canadian households pay more in carbon taxes than they get back in rebates. In provinces like Alberta and Saskatchewan, middle-income families are out hundreds of dollars a year. And that’s before factoring in the indirect costs—higher prices on groceries, construction, shipping, and everything else that relies on fuel.

Even Dan McTeague, once a Liberal MP and now president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, has been clear about this: the carbon tax is driving up the cost of living for everyone, and it’s not delivering results. Carney’s decision to leave the door open for its return shows he’s not prepared to change course. Not really.

This is classic political maneuvering: Create a headline, shift the narrative, and hope the public doesn’t dig too deep. But it’s already wearing thin. Canadians are tired of the games. We’ve seen too many announcements that sound good but deliver little. Carney had an opportunity to start differently. He could have offered real change, certainty, and relief. Instead, we got a bait-and-switch.

If this is what his leadership looks like on day one, it doesn’t inspire confidence. For businesses, it signals more uncertainty, not less. For families, it’s more of the same double-speak they’ve been hearing for years. And for those of us who want common-sense leadership, it’s a disappointment.

Carney has built his career on being the smartest guy in the room. He’s advised world leaders, led the Bank of Canada, and chaired the Bank of England. There’s no doubt he understands the economic impact of a policy like the carbon tax. But here’s the thing about smart people: they’re often too clever for their own good. They think they can walk both sides of an issue without anyone noticing. Announce you’ve killed the tax, but keep the ability to bring it back whenever you need to. Make everyone happy—for a while.

But in business, you can’t run a company that way. You can’t tell your investors one thing while planning to do another. You can’t promise your customers certainty and deliver uncertainty. That’s not how you earn trust. And trust is the currency we’re short on in Canada right now.

If Carney wants to be taken seriously as a different kind of leader, he needs to do more than make flashy announcements. He needs to back them up with action. Repealing the carbon tax law would be a start, and putting in place real constraints on government overreach would be another. Until then, this so-called “end” of the carbon tax is nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

We don’t need more spin. We need clarity. We need leadership that understands how important certainty is for growth and prosperity. Carney had a chance to show that. So far, he’s shown the opposite.

Not a great start.