It must have been tough for Mark Carney, the Liberal leadership candidate with the biggest climate chops, to throw the consumer carbon tax he once supported under the bus. But toss it he did, the very day he took office. Gas prices are already dropping, which lowers the incentive for people to switch to climate-friendly EVs and heat pumps, something you would have expected Carney, the former UN Special Envoy on Climate and Finance, to rail against. 

But by the time Carney announced he was running, the tax was already political poison. It had caused a near deadly rift in the Liberal party’s Atlantic Canada wing and even some of the country’s most progressive premiers wanted it gone. Call it pragmatism or politics; it had to be done.

And now as Trump’s internecine tariff attacks push our two countries toward a divorce, Carney is also talking about a Canadian east-to-west oil pipeline, “so we can displace imports of foreign oil.” Climate advocates are pushing back, pointing out that building out more expensive pipelines will further bake in our reliance on fossil........

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