Dear farmers,
Last week, we addressed the need to question the carbon pricing imposed on Quebec's agricultural businesses. Whether it's to run our tractors, dry our grains, or heat our livestock buildings and greenhouses, we are paying heavily for a system that fails to meet its environmental goals, while clearly putting us at a competitive disadvantage compared to our counterparts in other provinces and nearly all U.S. states.
This week, we take a closer look at the complexity of this system and explore how it allows the provincial government to confuse people about its objectives and actual outcomes.
The greenhouse gas Cap-and-Trade System — the well-known "carbon market" — is not a tax in the strict sense. As a result, it is more difficult to dismantle in practice. However, it is time to acknowledge that, despite its administrative and legal complexity, the damage it causes amply justifies a serious review, if not a complete withdrawal, of the system as it is applied today.
Let’s recall the original principle, which is so promising in theory: set an overall emissions cap, distribute or sell pollution permits, and allow companies to trade these permits among themselves to reward the most virtuous. In theory, this should encourage major emitters to reduce their emissions in order to sell their surplus to others.
In reality, major emitters — often heavy industries or energy producers — receive or purchase these permits at a cost they then pass down to consumers, including farmers. In fact, while farmers are theoretically exempt from the carbon market, they still contribute significant amounts each year to the Electrification and Climate Change Fund (where carbon market revenues are directed), with contributions exceeding $480 million since 2015.
In other words, those who are supposed to be penalized for their emissions actually have no real incentive to reduce them — they simply pass the bill along. Far from encouraging an ecological transition, this mechanism acts as a smokescreen, increasing costs for a group already under financial strain, and with no access to realistic or affordable alternatives.
So we end up with a two-tier system: on one side, large companies that continue to pollute with little real constraint; on the other, small businesses, farmers, and citizens who are left footing the bill. The environmental objective is stripped of its substance, while the economic effects are all too real — and painful.
Let’s be clear: an ineffective carbon market is no better than an unfair tax. In fact, it's less transparent, easier to circumvent, and harder to explain to the public. The current government takes advantage of this, filling its coffers by reaching directly into ours.
If the government is sincere in its commitment to climate change, it must have the courage to question this mechanism. A refusal to do so would reveal its true intention to fill its budgetary gap, largely caused by questionable and poorly targeted investments.
The energy transition will not happen through policies that miss the mark. It is time to revisit our collective approach, refocus our efforts on real incentives for emission reductions, and build a fair, transparent, and truly effective system.
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