Trudeau says conservative premiers are lying about carbon pricing

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says conservative politicians across Canada, including premiers, are lying to Canadians about the carbon price.

Trudeau's government is buckling as attacks mount against carbon pricing, and voters increasingly side with politicians who say the policy is making their lives less affordable.

Most premiers and the federal Conservatives are pushing the Liberals to at least cancel a scheduled increase of the carbon price on April 1.

Trudeau says those politicians are failing to acknowledge and inform Canadians about carbon-price rebates meant to offset consumers' costs, and he is accusing Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre of blocking legislation that would double the rebate top-up for rural Canadians.

His comments at a press conference in Vancouver on Wednesday come as several premiers are bringing their anti-carbon price pleas to a House of Commons committee this week.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe told the House of Commons operations committee earlier Wednesday that he believes in climate change and that emissions need to go down. But he said pricing pollution is not the way to do it.

«The goal is not for the big polluters to pay, the goal is for them to emit less,» he said, bristling a little during an exchange with New Democrat MP Alexandre Boulerice.

«How is it we shouldn't make big polluters pay?» Boulerice demanded, accusing Moe of believing that «giant vacuum cleaners» will suck emissions out of the sky to solve climate change.

The antagonistic nature of the debate was on full display at the committee, which spent almost as much time arguing about whether Moe should have been there at all as it did hearing what he had to say.

Liberal, NDP and Bloc Québécois MPs accused the Conservatives, who