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AXE CARBON TAX: Scheer tells Winnipeg crowd CPC would go with incentives instead of taxation

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The federal government’s failure to deal with the needs of Churchill in the wake of the Omnitrax debacle and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal carbon tax plan were hot issues for official opposition leader Andrew Scheer in Winnipeg on Monday.

Scheer, the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, spoke briefly at the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce Luncheon on Monday afternoon, says that Trudeau’s response to a broken rail line that’s yet to be fixed in northern Manitoba is a failure by the Grits to look after the basic needs of a community.

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“This problem has been going on for a really long time now with no response from the government,” Scheer said. “Conservatives believe that when these types of issues come up, there needs to be some type of partnership with the private sector that actually own the assets and things like that.

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“The fact that there’s a complete lack of a plan this far into the project, it just shows how this government has failed to respond to the basic needs of the community.”

Scheer also told the lunch-goers that he’d repeal the federal government’s carbon tax plan and allow for provincial governments to make their own decisions when it comes to how they plan on reducing emissions.

“We will have an environmental plan that speaks to lowering gas emissions but it will not be done through taxation,” Scheer said. “It will be done through incentivization and making it easier for businesses and commuters to make the upgrades and the retrofits that will actually have an impact on reducing emissions.”

Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Chuck Davidson said Scheer’s message sounds good in theory.

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“There’s no question they want to be a government that’s more business-friendly,” Davidson said, noting that he didn’t think many from the province’s business community had heard from Scheer yet. “No big surprises today.”

Davidson said from a business standpoint, there are concerns with how well the Canadian economy is being handled, including how NAFTA and Donald Trump’s presidency is affecting business relations with the United States.

He also wanted to know what a repealing of the carbon tax would look like in Manitoba if Scheer was to win election in 2019.

Davidson said he’ll be keeping the Conservative leader accountable.

“It sounds great,” Davidson said of Scheer’s message. “When you’re the prime minister of the day, we’ll make sure we remind you of the conversations we had in Winnipeg today because we think that’s important.”

sbilleck@postmedia.com

Twitter: @scottbilleck

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