Juno News - March 13, 2024


Trudeau goes on 8 minute long rant about the Carbon Tax


Episode Stats

Length

8 minutes

Words per Minute

155.41396

Word Count

1,309

Sentence Count

65

Misogynist Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.500 Number one, what do you say to people who aren't buying what you just said?
00:00:04.280 You know, aren't buying your argument.
00:00:05.580 And they're not just all conservatives or all politicians or all misinformation people.
00:00:10.320 So what do you say to those people, including premiers, including Premier Smith, who aren't buying that argument?
00:00:16.000 So you've got to give us something more to try to convince people of that because there's a lot of people who aren't convinced.
00:00:21.080 They want to pause in April, etc.
00:00:24.780 And this one's an easy one.
00:00:26.640 Are you more or less likely to fire your environment minister because Premier Smith keeps saying you should fire your environment minister?
00:00:36.280 Listen, right now, everyone is stressed out, stressed out with the cost of living.
00:00:42.580 It is a stressful time.
00:00:44.940 There are massive challenges around the world in terms of inflation, in terms of supply chains.
00:00:51.180 There are wars going on in a way that is putting more pressure on people and, you know, emotional angst on a whole bunch of people in every community.
00:01:01.940 There is uncertainties.
00:01:03.760 We're still, in some ways, recovering from the effects of the acute pandemic that we just had.
00:01:10.420 We're dealing with, you know, countries getting more protectionistic in a whole bunch of different ways.
00:01:14.980 There are real challenges in the world right now.
00:01:18.700 And one of the challenges everybody is seeing is climate change.
00:01:23.880 Alberta declared a start to its forest fire season in February this year.
00:01:29.940 We had one of the worst years for wildfires ever on top of some of the worst years for floods and droughts in different parts of the country as well.
00:01:39.040 The impacts of climate change are real.
00:01:44.300 And they're not just environmental or, you know, community-based.
00:01:49.180 They're also economic.
00:01:51.040 We are seeing that investors from around the world are looking to where they can rely on clean energy,
00:01:58.280 where they can develop some of the climate solutions they have,
00:02:01.940 where there's a focus on decarbonizing the processes that we have for whatever it is,
00:02:07.360 so that there can be more competitiveness in a world that is adjusting to the fact that we're having to reduce our emissions of carbon in everything we do.
00:02:17.500 Those are just the facts.
00:02:21.240 The question is, what do we choose to do with that?
00:02:25.960 What decisions do we make collectively to tackle this problem?
00:02:30.620 Now, for decades now, as people saw the challenges with the environment,
00:02:36.780 the political will just wasn't there because there wasn't enough support for it across the country.
00:02:42.660 Who would want to actually, you know, face a challenge that really is only going to hit a few decades from now?
00:02:50.200 That'll be someone else's problem is, unfortunately, the easiest way to respond to this.
00:02:56.380 We don't have to do anything.
00:02:57.620 It won't hit us now while I'm in office, so let's just push off the problem for more and more people to deal with.
00:03:05.360 The problem is, the fact that we pushed off this problem for decades already
00:03:10.680 means it gets more and more expensive to make the changes that are necessary,
00:03:18.360 not just to protect communities' quality of life,
00:03:22.280 but also to protect our environmental opportunities and growth that we have.
00:03:28.220 So the question becomes,
00:03:30.020 does anyone really think
00:03:32.780 you can build a strong economy for the future
00:03:36.640 without, at the same time,
00:03:39.580 fighting climate change and being responsible about the environment?
00:03:43.660 The fact is, you cannot.
00:03:45.240 You can't have a plan for the economy
00:03:46.960 if you don't have a plan to fight climate change.
00:03:48.960 So then the question becomes, well, how do you fight climate change?
00:03:53.320 There are lots of different ways you can do it.
00:03:55.360 You can bring in the heavy hand of regulations
00:03:58.080 to force people to do different things.
00:04:01.980 You can bring in, you know, different incentives and subsidies and rewards
00:04:07.580 to, you know, invest in companies that are actually doing the right kinds of things.
00:04:12.080 But that all involves the heavy hand of government
00:04:15.800 weighing in on how we're going to do that.
00:04:20.360 I prefer a cleaner solution, a market-based solution
00:04:23.920 of saying, you know what?
00:04:27.700 If you're behaving in ways that are going to cause pollution
00:04:31.840 that is going to impact the whole community,
00:04:35.280 you should pay for that pollution
00:04:38.360 so the community then doesn't suffer the negative sides of it
00:04:41.720 or have to clean it up on their own dime.
00:04:44.240 That's what we do when people spewing water into,
00:04:47.160 wastewater from factories into streams.
00:04:49.780 We say, no, no, no.
00:04:51.020 You're going to have to clean that up.
00:04:52.660 You're going to have to be responsible for the pollution you create.
00:04:57.080 So that's why putting a price
00:04:58.980 on carbon emissions
00:05:01.160 just makes sense
00:05:02.400 because a company that says, oh, you know what?
00:05:04.220 I'm going to avoid paying that price by investing in a better type of technology.
00:05:11.100 Well, that just makes sense.
00:05:13.580 And that company should be rewarded.
00:05:16.540 And a company that says, no, I'm just going to continue to pollute,
00:05:19.300 the fact that they wouldn't get dinged for that
00:05:21.460 doesn't make sense either.
00:05:24.420 So we said,
00:05:25.740 pollution will have a price on it.
00:05:29.540 But more than that,
00:05:30.920 we know there's a lot of families across this country
00:05:33.180 who don't have huge amounts of choices
00:05:35.500 in terms of, oh, I'm just going to buy
00:05:37.420 a much more fuel efficient car.
00:05:39.540 I'm going to replace my roof
00:05:40.900 or my insulation or my windows.
00:05:42.420 That's a hard investment to make.
00:05:44.280 So we wanted to make sure that people who continue
00:05:46.520 to not be able to change much in their behaviors
00:05:48.960 would get
00:05:50.580 that money back.
00:05:52.760 And that's what we do with the price on pollution.
00:05:55.700 But think about a family
00:05:56.780 that does decide, oh, okay, you know what?
00:05:58.460 We can get a slightly smaller car or we're going to replace our windows.
00:06:01.660 We'll go for the slightly more fuel efficient windows.
00:06:03.800 Well, they actually get more money back
00:06:06.040 because they're spending less on that price on pollution.
00:06:10.180 So it's a logical way to do things.
00:06:13.340 But yes, it does require putting a price on things right now
00:06:17.960 so that we can set ourselves up for success in the future.
00:06:23.060 And that's an easy thing for short-term politicians,
00:06:28.400 short-term thinker politicians
00:06:29.900 to say, oh, we'll get rid of the price.
00:06:32.920 They don't talk about the fact that they're also going to get rid of that check,
00:06:36.380 the Canada carbon rebate,
00:06:37.800 that puts more money in the pockets
00:06:39.440 of the vast majority of Canadians.
00:06:41.060 And they don't have a plan
00:06:45.440 or they don't talk about
00:06:46.600 how they're going to actually use the heavy hand of government
00:06:49.040 through regulations
00:06:50.240 or through subsidies
00:06:51.840 or some other way
00:06:53.080 to pick winners and losers in the economy
00:06:55.520 as opposed to trusting the market.
00:06:57.940 Now, your question, Rick,
00:06:59.940 is sort of, well,
00:07:01.060 that all makes sense.
00:07:02.780 Why are so many people still against it?
00:07:04.700 Well, you know,
00:07:05.260 that's a question we all have to ask.
00:07:06.940 But my job is not to be popular.
00:07:11.940 My job, although it helps,
00:07:13.600 my job,
00:07:14.680 my job is to do the right things for Canada now
00:07:18.800 and do the right things for Canadians a generation from now.
00:07:24.360 And that's what I've been focused on.
00:07:26.300 And yeah, not always popular.
00:07:29.680 But I know
00:07:30.720 that doing the right things today
00:07:34.060 that support people today
00:07:36.200 that deliver that better future
00:07:38.520 a generation from now,
00:07:40.380 two generations from now
00:07:41.680 is going to make a huge difference
00:07:44.360 in the path we take forward.
00:07:46.540 In regards to my environment minister,
00:07:49.920 I have tremendous faith and confidence
00:07:51.780 in my environment minister.
00:07:54.420 And if, you know,
00:07:56.040 if people are having trouble getting along with them,
00:07:58.180 maybe they need to look at their own approach
00:08:00.860 to these big issues
00:08:02.500 as opposed to looking at what he's talking about,
00:08:05.780 which is consistent
00:08:07.180 with building a better future for everyone.
00:08:09.160 And I think so.