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The federal government appears to have a perception problem: Most Canadians don’t understand what the carbon tax is costing them while others believe they are paying more than they receive in rebates, a new poll suggests.

The federal government said nearly all households in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and the Atlantic provinces will receive a rebate on the fuel tax, as long as they filed their taxes, and that 80 per cent of households will earn more than they pay.

Yet almost 70 per cent of Canadians did not know what the carbon tax is costing them, according to a poll by the Angus Reid Institute, which uncovered broad-based confusion around the quarterly rebate program known as the Canada Climate Action Incentive.

A quarter of respondents said they did not get a rebate and 34 per cent said they were paying more in carbon tax than they were getting back. Another 17 per cent said they were satisfied with the rebate and 24 per cent were unsure what they were getting.

The Liberal government should be most concerned about how lower-income Canadians view the rebate, the pollster said. An analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office found lower-income Canadians are “nearly guaranteed” to get back more than they pay, yet the poll found they are just as uncertain about benefiting from the rebate as higher-income Canadians.

“If you’re attempting to sell a tax by stating that low-income earners won’t ultimately pay anything, it’s important to ensure people feel like this is their reality,” said Dave Korzinski, research director at Angus Reid, who authored the study.

The Liberals’ signature climate policy is in trouble across the country, with support for the program plummeting 11 percentage points since 2021, according to Angus Reid’s latest on the subject. Forty-two per cent say it should be abolished and 17 per cent say it should be temporarily lowered for the next three years.

“It’s clear now that household financial concerns are paramount in the minds (and voting preferences) of Canadians, and while they would like to continue to fight climate change, most see the carbon tax as an inefficient and unfairly expensive mechanism to do so,” Korzinski said.

The policy found itself in the crosshairs when Ottawa announced that it was suspending the carbon tax for three years for Canadians in Atlantic Canada who warm their homes with heating oil. Political opponents cried foul and Alberta and Saskatchewan called for a similar break for people who use natural gas to heat their homes.

On Nov. 16, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe brought in a bill that gives provincial officials the power to not remit carbon tax on home heating fuel to Ottawa. That was extended to Nov. 30 to include homes heated with electricity.

Angus Reid’s poll, however, said there’s confusion here as well.

How much extra cost the carbon tax puts on home heating varies across the country. In Halifax, the tax is estimated to be about nine per cent of the energy bill, while in Manitoba, it’s about $58 a year or eight per cent for larger users, and in Saskatchewan, it adds about seven per cent or $67 a year.

“Disregarding for a moment whether they’re correct or not about the cost impact, a huge number of Canadians have no idea how the carbon tax affects their heating, or assume it is an amount that exceeds 15 per cent,” Korzinski said.

The carbon tax adds between 14 and 17 cents to a litre of gasoline or diesel in Canada, but only three in 10 Canadians correctly identified that number. Thirty-five per cent said it was in the range of 20 to 40 cents a litre and 19 per cent didn’t know.

Korzinski said the Liberals need to more clearly communicate the policy’s costs and benefits if they want to save it.

“Seven in 10 (69 per cent) Canadians operating under the same fuel tax don’t know what it costs them when they fill up,” he said. “If those types of numbers persist, it could represent the beginning of the end of a signature Liberal policy: one that has gone from a winning platform item to a political liability.”

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Today’s Posthaste was written by Gigi Suhanic, with additional reporting from The Canadian Press and Bloomberg.

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