Poilievre calls for diesel tax cuts, scrapping carbon tax and Clean Fuel Standard

The Story

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is urging Ottawa to cut federal taxes on diesel fuel as a way to reduce prices for consumers and businesses, while arguing Canada must also protect future supply through expanded refining and infrastructure.

Speaking in the Ottawa area at a suburban gas station, Poilievre said Canada already produces enough diesel to meet national demand, but that transportation bottlenecks can leave some regions more dependent on U.S. imports.

His proposal centres on eliminating tax on diesel sales until at least Canada Day. Poilievre said the plan would extend a federal fuel excise tax cut through to July 1 of next year.

He also called for removing the GST from the purchase of diesel fuel, characterizing the combined changes as an immediate step to make diesel more affordable.

Poilievre additionally argued that federal costs discourage investment in the production side of the fuel supply chain. He said the Conservatives would remove all diesel production taxes by permanently scrapping the federal industrial carbon tax and ending the Clean Fuel Standard.

According to Poilievre, the industrial carbon tax and the Clean Fuel Standard add costs to diesel production and discourage new investment in refineries, which he says limits long-term capacity.

Alongside the tax and regulatory changes, Poilievre said the Conservative approach would expand refining capacity and help refineries process more Canadian crude, improving the ability of Canadian production to meet domestic needs.

He also linked his proposal to construction of the transportation and storage infrastructure needed to deliver diesel to every region, framing it as a solution to the bottlenecks that can force parts of the country to rely on cross-border supply.

Poilievre’s comments were positioned as a supply-and-affordability plan: reduce near-term diesel prices through tax relief while increasing domestic capacity and logistics to ensure stable availability into the future.

The proposal’s practical impact, as described by Poilievre, would be a lower total tax burden on each litre of diesel in the targeted period and a longer-term shift away from production taxes that he says are contributing to underinvestment in refining and distribution.