The carbon tax was Justin Trudeau’s crown jewel—a smug, sanctimonious policy that promised to save the planet while bleeding Canadians dry. Instead, it became a lightning rod for rage, a symbol of Liberal arrogance that sparked protests, crippled affordability, and left a legacy of resentment. Now, with Trudeau gone and Mark Carney at the helm, you’d think the Liberals might rethink this disaster. Think again. Carney’s not here to bury the carbon tax; he’s here to resurrect its ghost, propped up by a cabinet of Trudeau loyalists who championed this fiasco from day one. Far from a clean break, Carney’s leadership is a stubborn echo of the same elitist failures—proof that the Liberals still don’t give a damn about the people they’ve crushed.
Let’s recap the carnage. Trudeau rammed the carbon pricing scheme through in 2019, slapping a tax on fuel that jacked up gas prices, heating bills, and grocery costs—because nothing says “climate action” like punishing families already stretched thin. By 2023, the tax hit $65 per tonne, with plans to climb to $170 by 2030, a slow chokehold on every Canadian wallet. The Parliamentary Budget Officer pegged the average household cost at $1,100 a year—rebates be damned—while rural folks, small businesses, and farmers got hit hardest. Meanwhile, emissions barely budged; Environment Canada’s own data showed a measly 2.2% drop from 2019 to 2024. Billions collected, nothing gained—except a revolt.
The backlash was seismic. Truckers rolled into Ottawa in 2022, horns blaring against fuel costs. Farmers in Saskatchewan torched hay bales in protest, their margins gutted by Trudeau’s green obsession. By 2024, polls showed 62% of Canadians wanted the tax scrapped, per Angus Reid—yet Trudeau doubled down, sneering at “axe the tax” chants as populist noise. X lit up with fury: “Trudeau’s carbon tax is a scam—taxing us to death while China pumps out coal,” one user raged in January 2025. Another nailed it: “Liberals don’t care about affordability; they care about their eco-photo ops.” The policy didn’t just fail—it turned Canadians against their own government.
Enter Mark Carney, the Liberals’ shiny new PM as of March 2025, promising to “fix what’s broken.” But his fix looks a lot like Trudeau’s folly. Before taking the reins, Carney was a carbon tax cheerleader, preaching its virtues as Trudeau’s economic advisor in 2024. He called it “essential” for growth in a fawning Globe and Mail op-ed—never mind the families choosing between heat and food. Now, with the tax technically paused after Trudeau’s exit (a desperate 2025 election ploy), Carney’s dodging questions on its future, mumbling about “balanced approaches.” Balanced for who? Not the working stiffs still reeling from a decade of Liberal price hikes.
His cabinet tells the real story—stacked with the same clowns who built this mess. Steven Guilbeault, Carney’s Environment Minister, was Trudeau’s eco-warrior-in-chief, the zealot who pushed the carbon tax despite its glaring flops. As Transport Minister in 2023, he ignored truckers’ pleas while emissions from his own department’s fleet climbed. Then there’s Chrystia Freeland, now Carney’s Transport Minister, who as Trudeau’s Finance Minister cooked the books to sell the tax as “revenue neutral”—a lie shredded by every receipt at the pump. Mélanie Joly, Carney’s Foreign Affairs Minister, sat in Trudeau’s cabinet through the backlash, nodding along as Canadians begged for relief. And Dominic LeBlanc, now International Trade Minister, was a Trudeau fixer who never met a tax he couldn’t defend.
These aren’t fresh faces; they’re the carbon tax’s original sin squad. When Carney bragged about his “experienced” cabinet on March 14, 2025, he meant experienced at screwing Canadians. Posts on X from early 2025 saw it coming: “Carney’s keeping Guilbeault and Freeland—same carbon tax BS, just a new salesman,” one user fumed. Another blasted, “Mark Carney was Trudeau’s hype man for this garbage policy. Now he’s PM with the same crew. Unreal.” Unreal, but predictable—Carney’s not draining the swamp; he’s swimming in it.
The Liberals sued dissenters here, too. When provinces like Saskatchewan and Alberta fought the tax in court, Trudeau’s government—backed by Carney’s future team—dragged them through legal mud, costing taxpayers millions to defend a policy no one wanted. Carney’s silence then, and his vagueness now, reeks of complicity. With Trump’s tariffs looming and gas prices still volatile, Canadians need relief, not more green dogma. Yet Carney’s cabinet, marinated in Trudeau’s failures, seems poised to revive the tax under some new name—because why admit you’re wrong when you can rebrand the pain?
The carbon tax wasn’t just a policy—it was a betrayal, a cash grab dressed up as virtue that Carney and his crew still can’t disown. Trudeau’s gone, but his shadow looms large, and Carney’s too entwined to cast it off. When the next election hits—maybe April 28, 2025—remember the Liberals who taxed you into the ground and the new PM who kept them around. Carney’s not here to save us; he’s here to sell us the same old Liberal lies.