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We’ll never know the total cost Canadians paid to fund former prime minister Justin Trudeau’s failed climate change policies that Prime Minister Mark Carney has largely abandoned.

GOLDSTEIN: Canada’s bottomless climate change money pit Back to video

That’s because in addition to the upfront costs, there were the lost opportunity costs caused by putting a damper on the expansion of Canada’s oil and natural gas sectors for a decade.

The upfront costs of Trudeau’s plan can be estimated to some extent.

In April 2023, then environment minister Steven Guilbeault boasted the Trudeau government had earmarked more than $200 billion to fight climate change, administered by 149 government agencies.

Add to that $303 billion in estimated provincial and territorial spending on climate change, administered through 364 government programs.

(This is based on data from the Canadian Climate Institute and Navius Research, cited by retired energy consultant Robert Lyman in a May 2024 Financial Post column.)

That means Canadians were paying at least $503 billion on more than 500 federal, provincial and territorial programs, costing every Canadian an........

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