Poll: Canadians concerned about carbon tax impact on competitiveness

SecondStreet.org, a new Canadian think tank, released poll results today on Canadians’ views on carbon taxes. The poll results show Canadians believe carbon taxes will make our nation’s business climate less competitive and will make it more difficult for companies to pay their employees and hire new ones.

“New polling results shows Canadians believe carbon taxes will reduce our nation’s competitiveness,” said SecondStreet.org President Colin Craig. “People also believe carbon taxes make it harder for businesses to hire workers and pay existing employees. That’s consistent with what we’ve heard from businesses that we’ve spoken to.”

Here are the key highlights:

• Canadians are twice as likely to say carbon taxes will make Canada’s business environment less competitive (39.0%) rather than more competitive (18.0%).
• A majority of Canadians think carbon taxes will make it at least a little harder for businesses to pay their workers or hire new ones (58.0%) versus those who believe it will have no impact (33.5%). 

The poll was conducted by Nanos Research as part of an omnibus survey of 1,000 Canadians, 18 years of age or older, between May 31st and June 4th, 2019. The margin of error for this survey is ±3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

To view SecondStreet.org’s policy brief and polling data – click here