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This is a unique feature for a tax. Most taxes are primarily designed to raise revenue for government. But carbon taxes are different. Making things more expensive to change people’s behaviour is not a side effect. It is the main purpose.

From a political standpoint, telling people this is problematic. Indeed, the Abacus survey shows fully 75 per cent of people believe any plan to reduce emissions must not “drive up the cost of living too much.” So people support “action” – so long as it doesn’t cost too much.

This is a major headache for carbon tax advocates, since the smaller the tax, the lower the potential emissions reduction. This is why they want to talk about “pricing” but not actual prices. It’s also why leading carbon tax proponents such as Environment Minister Catherine McKenna have been stymied by the most basic questions about the impact of carbon taxes, and instead fall back on meaningless bromides like “the economy and the environment go hand in hand.”

Even when carbon-taxers do mention real prices — such as the Trudeau government’s incoming $10 per tonne tax, rising to $50 per tonne by 2022 — they fail to mention that this is nowhere near the $300 per tonne that Environment Canada said would ultimately be needed for Canada to hit its own emissions targets. This is not an honest way to sell people on climate change policy.

Abacus’ Bruce Anderson notes that most Canadians tend to “embrace the centre” and seek “consensus and compromise.” But that’s precisely the problem with carbon taxes: smaller ones will satisfy no one because they are not big enough to change behaviour. If anything, they will anger both supporters and opponents of carbon taxes, the former for failing to raise them high enough to actually reduce emissions, and the latter for proving right fears that they’re just another tax hike.

Carbon-tax advocates need to go big or go home. They can either admit to Canadians that slashing carbon emissions will be expensive, difficult and painful, and all the sacrifice could well be for nothing if other countries aren’t doing the same. Or they should just admit this is nothing more than a plan for filling up government coffers.

Aaron Wudrick is the federal director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.