KINGSTON, ONT.—While NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has already vowed to hit industrial polluters with heavier bills for their greenhouse gas emissions, the party isn’t ruling out an increase to the federal carbon price for the population at large.

The carbon price has been at the centre of a pitched political battle centred on the Conservative claims it will kill jobs and hurt the economy, while the Liberal government has defended it as a core element of Canada’s contribution to the global fight against climate change.

Earlier this summer, Liberal environment minister Catherine McKenna ruled out hiking the federal levy on emissions beyond $50 per tonne in 2022, but later backtracked to leave the door open if the Liberals are re-elected. She was responding to Conservative claims the price would go up, after the Parliamentary Budget Officer reported it would need to double to $102 per tonne, but only in the hypothetical scenario that Canada relied only on this policy to hit its target to slash emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

During a campaign stop at a farmer’s market in square behind the historic city hall in downtown Kingston, Singh did not say whether he would continue to increase the carbon price after this, should his party form government after the Oct. 21 election. He told the Star on his campaign bus after that the party hasn’t decided whether it would increase the price.

In a subsequent email, the NDP’s campaign co-chair also left the door open for possible increases to the price as the party strives to achieve deeper emissions reductions than aimed for by the current government’s Liberal plan.

“We would expect the carbon price, along with all our measures to tackle climate change, would be regularly reviewed and adjusted to make sure Canada is on track to reduce emissions and meet our targets,” said Marie Della Mattia.

“Our focus is on making big polluters pay for pollution, not Canadians,” she said.

As the parties jockey over what polls have suggested is a major issue on the campaign trail, each has argued they have the best policies to address the threat of climate change – including how they would change the current carbon price and associated rebate payments the government says give people more money than they actually pay because of the levy.

The current levy has been imposed in four provinces that refused to meet a minimum carbon pricing standard under Canada’s climate action plan – Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Manitoba – and is set this year at $20 per tonne, increasing the price of gasoline by about 4 cents per litres, and climbing to $50 per tonne in 2022, when gas prices will be increased by 11 cents per litre.

While the Conservatives vow to scrap the system in favour of an unspecified requirement for heavy emitters to invest in their own technological improvements, the Greens have said they would continue to hike the carbon price by $10 every year after 2022, until emissions are effectively eliminated in Canada.

The NDP, meanwhile, has criticized the existing Liberal carbon price for exempting heavy polluters from paying it on all their emissions. Under the current system, heavy emitters don’t have to pay the levy for 80 per cent of the average emissions per unit of production in their sectors – and for industries in sectors with stiff international competition, the threshold exemption is even higher.

The NDP has said it would lower this to a 70 per cent average for all heavy polluters so companies in these sectors would pay a higher – and they argue, fairer – share of the carbon price payments in the country.

Singh repeated this on Saturday at the farmer’s market, drawing applause from the partisan crowd that included the local New Democrat candidate, Barrington Walker.

“The wealthiest and most powerful corporations that pollute the most should not be entitled to a massive exemption,” he said. “We will never tackle the climate crisis if that’s our approach.”

Singh defended his party’s climate change plan against a charge from Green Leader Elizabeth May, who claimed that only her call to slash Canada’s emissions to 60 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030, double the current Liberal target, is consistent with science that calls for drastic reductions.

A 2018 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) called for “unprecedented” social and economic changes over the next 11 years if the world is to avoid the disastrous effects of climate change this century.

“Our plan is based on the science,” said Singh. “We’ve got to keep warming (limited) to 1.5 degrees. And we know that’s going to mean we’re going to have to dramatically reduce our emissions.”

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The NDP’s $15-billion climate action plan lays out measures the party claims would take Canada beyond its target by reducing emissions to 38 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030. The plan includes $6.5-billion worth of improved public transportation that would be electric by 2030. The party would put $3 billion towards a new “climate bank” that would support green technology innovation, while cancelling what the party describes as more than $3-billion in federal subsidies to the emissions-heavy fossil fuel industry.

On Saturday, Singh described the plan as the beginning of an NDP government’s efforts to slash emissions, with the expectation that technological improvements and other measures would ensure Canada cuts emissions closer to the global prescription of the IPCC: 45 per cent below 2010 levels by 2030 and net zero by 2050.

A new “climate accountability office” in government would ensure Canada is on track to meet these goals, the NDP plan says.

Alex Ballingall is an Ottawa-based reporter covering national politics. Follow him on Twitter: @aballinga

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