OTTAWA – The New Democrats are facing political headwinds when it comes to carbon pricing, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau acknowledged Friday, although he doesn’t get why they seem to be having second thoughts.
The NDP has long championed the idea of putting a price on pollution, even campaigning on it in the 2019 election.
But this week, the party shifted its tone, saying carbon pricing is not the “be-all, end-all” and encouraging premiers to come up with new ideas to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
New Democrat MPs also backed a non-binding Conservative motion in the House of Commons demanding that Trudeau sit down with provincial and territorial leaders within five weeks to discuss the policy.
“It’s not a handful of conservative politicians and premiers that are going to turn me away from continuing the fight against climate change,” Trudeau said Friday during a news conference in Vaughan, Ont., outside Toronto.
“So …