Hon. Leo Housakos: Senator Gold, Justin Trudeau and the Liberal-NDP coalition finally flip-flopped on their cornerstone public policy: the carbon tax. Of course, the Prime Minister didn’t flip-flop on the carbon tax because he finally understood what future prime minister Pierre Poilievre has been talking about for years, which is that a carbon tax causes inflation, raises the cost of living and pummels poor, working-class and middle‑class Canadians — no, not at all. He flip-flopped because he saw plummeting polling numbers for the Liberal Party of Canada and desperate Liberal MPs from Atlantic Canada.

The question is this: Why just for Atlantic Canada?

Second, if Justin Trudeau has finally understood that he and his carbon tax are just not worth the cost, why isn’t he now planning to axe the tax from coast to coast to coast in order to give relief to all segments of the economy and all sectors of the population?

Senator Housakos: Will your government commit to getting rid of that carbon tax?

Senator Housakos: Let me get this straight: After your first carbon tax, where you pummelled middle-class Canadians into the ground, forcing them to become poor, while you have had no impact on your environmental targets — you’ve hit none of them; it’s zero — you are telling me that a second carbon tax to continue your insanity in your failed policy of saving the environment — by killing poor and middle-class Canadians — is somehow a magic bullet. Congratulations — you have failed on your environmental targets; you have succeeded in setting record-high inflation; and you have succeeded in growing the number of poor Canadians in this country, as well as the dwindling middle class. The question is simple: Will your government, at least, try some of these common-sense policies that we are putting forward as an opposition, and put a pause on this second carbon tax in order to give badly needed relief to middle-class and poor Canadians who are suffering while we go on vacation?