Canadian Chamber of Commerce 'very much in favour' of carbon tax

“The voice of Canadian business”, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce released a statement this week announcing its support for a carbon taxation scheme as the most effective way for the country’s private sector to meet the challenges of climate change.

The Chamber, which represents 200,000 businesses of all sizes in all sectors of the economy and in all regions of the country, released a report focusing on the best methods for reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions at the lowest cost to the nation’s economy and quality of life.

While committed to reducing Canada’s carbon footprint and happy to tax emissions to do so, the Chamber’s maintained the importance of striking a balance between taxation to reduce pollution and keeping Canada attractive to new and extant business ventures and investors.

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“Governments should act in partnership and avoid layering regulation on top of carbon pricing without extensive analysis of how doing so will affect costs and trade-offs with other social/economic goals”, said the report.

Perrin Beatty, President and CEO of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said “you can’t have a market-based approach to climate change without respecting the market and the input of business”.

“Canadian businesses of all sizes are prepared to accept carbon pricing as a cost of doing business, but remain very concerned that governments will continue to use it as a political bargaining chip instead of delivering a pricing policy that is simple and works well,” said Aaron Henry, Ph.D., Director, Natural Resources and Environmental Policy, and project lead for the report.