Border Carbon Adjustments expend PC and gut solvency.
CCL, 2018, "Climate Income a.k.a. Carbon Fee and Dividend," Citizens' Climate Lobby Canada, https://canada.citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-fee-and-dividend/, KL
For years CCL has advocated for Border Carbon Adjustments (BCA) to help with competitiveness issues and carbon leakage when Canada imposes a carbon pricing policy.
BCAs are tariffs thus perceived as protectionist and thus a rallying cry of a trade war
Diplomatically speaking you would give your trading partners a couple years notice at least that they were coming
BCAs are complicated to set-up and take time to pass through the World Trade approvals
BCAs are thus a huge expenditure of political capital
BCAs are not really necessary at carbon prices below $40. For example British Columbia’s carbon tax is at that price without BCAs.
In conclusion, BCAs require a fully functioning carbon price which we don’t have yet. Thus, we will follow the adage and not put the cart before the horse. We are however at CCL Canada working with appropriate federal agencies and have asked them to study BCAs so that we have solid data to help us generate the political will for BCAs when the time comes.