Opinion by Mathew Carr
April 25, 2025 — Grok AI is hinting that Mark Carney will lose the Canadian election on Monday, calling him the “former PM” after I initiated a search on Friday about the current PM’s climate policy.
If this proves true, Liberal Carney will only have himself to blame. (Plus, bankers don’t make great candidates because they often are thieves in disguise and not exactly liked by “the people”. Add in Carney’s history of using inflation against folks and his close links to the global elite, you have a deeply flawed candidate.)
Here’s why Carney must accept blame, should he lose.
Carbon pricing is designed to make markets better. It’s meant to make products that hurt the climate more expensive. Clean-and-green products are made cheaper because putting a price on heat-trapping emissions —-preferably a high price — tends to do that.
Yet, except in Europe, policymakers are largely ignoring this and that’s why the climate crisis continues to worsen and why temperatures globally keep rising further into very dangerous territory.
Most politicians are still more keen to protect wealthy fossil-fuel investors than the climate. It’s shameful and it’ll go down in history as such.
The fossil fuels in the ground and the space in the atmosphere for greenhouse-gas pollution are both owned by “the people of the world” (ie taxpayers).
The wealthy, powerful, corrupt elite need to stop using both these commodities for their own greedy ends … instead of buying them for a fair market price (the crude oil market is also corrupted — by OPEC — which is also largely ignored by the press. The corruption is entirely normalised).
Why is it that Norway is pretty much the only country properly sharing fossil fuel wealth with its people? Because of this corruption. That’s why.
Canada’s elite has a lot of fossil fuels it still wants to corruptly exploit, which is why the two main candidates to be PM are so flawed. This election is yet another pretend democratic exercise designed to hoodwink the people.
It will be closely followed by similarly misleading exercises in Singapore and Australia (both on May 3).
Canada, with a tiny population of 40 million, might seem like a benign country, but it’s one of the worse for inflicting climate death on the rest of the world. The EU-27 has a population of 450 million, yet its emissions are far less than 10 times Canada’s. The US population is 340 million and the following chart clearly shows how damaging American and Canadian emissions are …and how important the climate propaganda is in protecting North American wealth and its deep institutionalized corruption. That Trump gets away with playing the victim is truly outrageous.
Grok:
“Mark Carney, as the former Canadian Prime Minister, eliminated the consumer carbon tax (he plans to do that, actually, it has not happened, to be sure), which had previously added a fee on fossil fuel use for individuals and small businesses.
“He argued it was divisive and placed an undue burden on consumers.
“His policy shifts the focus to large industrial emitters, increasing their carbon pricing obligations while introducing incentives for households to adopt greener choices, such as energy-efficient appliances, electric vehicles, and home insulation.
“This includes a consumer carbon credit market linked to industrial pricing, funded by big polluters, to reward emission reductions.”
CarrZee: Carbon prices have been demonized by a hostile press, who are also hell-bent on protecting fossil fuels because they are a great source of advertising revenue (and for other reasons such as protecting power structures)…and those are the REAL REASONS why they have proven divisive.
The problem is the demonization of carbon pricing, not the carbon pricing itself, which is the most cost-efficient way to tackle the climate crisis.
See the chart immediately above, which shows how effective carbon pricing has been in Europe, even though the system there is far from ideal.
[I guess if you take the corrupt media as a given that can’t be changed, Carney’s plan has some merit. Remember Carney and “media-baron-for-the-rich” Michael Bloomberg are mates and I believe they together have probably corrupted the UN climate process for many years. They both have or had UN-climate-envoy roles and Bloomberg has replaced money at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat removed by climate-change skeptic President Donald Trump.]
By removing the carbon price at the consumer level, Carney is effectively preventing clean solutions from winning in the market.
Consumers can’t see the cleaner, cheaper option, which they need to do in order to choose it. So they will continue to choose the dirty option.
Carney also proposed a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (which is already EU policy) to impose tariffs on imports from countries with weaker climate policies, aiming to maintain Canadian competitiveness.
Indeed, Trump is actually copying Europe’s policy of using tariffs to win global policy change. The EU wants climate policy hardening. Trump wants a global trade deal along the lines of the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans Pacific Partnership (or CPTPP — already one of the biggest trade deals in the world that China wants to join). Trump also wants reform of the WTO and he wants the UN to stop its long-standing practice of labeling China a developing country. He’s already apparently won higher defence spending from much of the world, but what has he GIVEN in return? Nothing so far?
The Carney plan emphasizes clean energy investment to position Canada as a leader in renewables, nuclear, hydrogen, and carbon capture, while still supporting conventional energy, to some extent. Canada is already a member of the CPTPP.
While Europe’s climate system includes rational carbon pricing, it also includes a raft of complicated other policies designed to curb emissions.
North America has an opportunity to create a much more efficient carbon-regulation system. That’s what Carney should be pushing for. That would give North America an advantage over Europe. It already has cheaper oil prices than the EU because of corruption in the crude market. America refuses to pay for the damage it is causing the climate.
European countries impose much higher taxes on gasoline and diesel than the U.S. does. In the U.S., taxes make up a small portion of the price at the pump, while in Europe, they can account for more than half.
But, Carney’s too cowardly to push to fix that big mess in favor of the people, at least he refuses to do that in plain sight. That’s somewhat understandable.
Pierre Poilievre, his main rival, is also deeply flawed on climate …yet, with underdog status on his side, he may now defeat Carney, as Grok says. (Carney has a lead of a few % points in the latest polls, as of Friday.)
So Carney is potentially on track to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory, even amid outrage among Canadians about Trump’s plan to make Canada America’s 51st state.
Poilievre is arguably a mini Trump, so should be made rather easily into the villain, easily….I would have thought.
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If Carney can’t win in this vote under these circumstances, it will probably mean former investment bankers and previous central bankers never run in politics, ever, again!
That will be a great thing for “the people” everywhere, who have been stolen from by bankers and bad policymakers for decades.
NOTES
For more details, see: https://markcarney.ca/climate/ or https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/02/20/news/carney-shifts-carbon-price-strategy-pledges-make-canada-clean-energy-superpower.[](https://markcarney.ca/climate)[](https://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/02/20/news/carney-carbon-tax-clean-energy-superpower)
Some sources, like The Narwhal, suggest Carney’s environmental policies, particularly on oil and gas, lack detailed plans, and critics argue the new system may increase costs for consumers indirectly through higher industrial prices.
Posts on X reflect mixed sentiments, with some praising Carney’s tax cut and others skeptical of the corporate cost shift.
What’s Carney’s CBAM?
Mark Carney’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) is a key component of his new Canadian climate plan, designed to ensure that imported goods face the same carbon price as domestically produced items. By applying a “border charge” on carbon-intensive imports, it seeks to:
Level the playing field between Canadian manufacturers—who pay under Canada’s industrial carbon pricing—and foreign competitors that currently avoid such costs. Prevent “carbon leakage”, where production (and associated emissions) shifts to jurisdictions with weaker climate rules. Drive global decarbonization by encouraging trading partners to adopt stronger emissions controls, lest their exports to Canada become less competitive.
How does it work?
Scope of goods Carney proposes covering sectors like steel, cement and chemicals—mirroring the EU’s approach, which applies CBAM to iron & steel, cement, fertil izers, aluminum and electricity imports. Transitional reporting phase Following the EU’s model (which began reporting in October 2023 and runs through end-2025), importers would first declare embedded emissions and associated carbon costs, before any payments are due. Full adjustment Once reporting systems are established, importers pay a charge per tonne of CO₂ equivalent—set to match Canada’s domestic industrial carbon price—at the point of entry.
Why Carney’s CBAM matters for Canada
Protects jobs and investment in Canadian heavy industry by removing the cost disadvantage against imports . Safeguards environmental integrity of Canada’s net-zero by 2050 commitment by ensuring global supply chains internalize their carbon impact . Positions Canada as a climate leader, building on the EU’s “first-mover” advantage and potentially inspiring similar mechanisms in other trading partners.
Next steps and challenges
Design details (e.g. precise sectors, carbon price alignment, administrative rules) must be drafted, likely through engagement with industry and trade partners. World Trade Organization (WTO) compatibility will need careful legal design to avoid disputes over border measures. International cooperation: Success hinges on harmonizing with the EU’s CBAM and avoiding fracturing the global trading system.
In sum, Carney’s CBAM adapts the EU’s trailblazing mechanism to Canadian policy—aiming to protect competitiveness at home, prevent emissions being off-shored, and push global decarbonization forward.