(LifeSiteNews) — The former Liberal environment minister has claimed that Canadians who oppose the Trudeau government’s carbon tax are, in effect, “arsonists.” 

On August 19, former Liberal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna condemned Conservatives as “arsonists” responsible for forest fires for their opposition to the carbon tax imposed on the use of natural resources by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government.

“Conservative politicians want to fight about a price on carbon pollution?” McKenna posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “You want to make it free to pollute while Canadians pay with their lives threatened, homes destroyed and their communities obliterated? So what are you going to do? You are the arsonists.” 

Conservative politicians want to fight about a price on carbon pollution? You want to make it free to pollute while Canadians pay with their lives threatened, homes destroyed and their communities obliterated? So what are you going to do? You are the arsonists.

— Catherine McKenna (@cathmckenna) August 20, 2023

Notably, McKenna restricted comments on her post to those she mentioned or follows, meaning most Canadians could not reply to her inflammatory statement. 

In recent months, the Trudeau government and mainstream media outlets have blamed the unusually rampant fires across the country on “climate change” in what many see as an attempt to further justify the regulation of natural resources.

However, Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have arrested arsonists who have been charged with lighting fires across the country, including in the Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta.  

In Quebec, satellite footage also showed the mysterious simultaneous eruption of several blazes across the province, sparking concerns that the fires were a coordinated effort by arsonists.  

Last week, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith pointed out that 500 out of 650 fires in the province were started by humans and not “climate change.” 

Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre responded to McKenna’s comments a during a press conference in Ottawa Monday afternoon. 

“What I really worry about is the increased radicalization of rhetoric by liberals, particularly Justin Trudeau, but the nastiness and meanness that they’re directing at people who disagree with their policies, whether it’s true, those nasty comments directed at Muslim parents, or whether it is him jabbing his finger in people’s faces, and now a former Liberal minister, saying that anybody who doesn’t want to pay higher taxes is an arsonist,” Poilievre said. 

“Really, really, as if we paid higher taxes, we’d have less for forest fires,” he challenged. “Come on. Let’s get back to some common sense in this country. And let’s start to bring our people together instead of tearing the country apart.” 

Effective July 1, the Trudeau government enforced a second federal carbon tax which is costing the average Canadian family hundreds more dollars in fuel costs each year.

Despite warnings that many of the Trudeau government’s newly implemented or proposed regulations will hurt Canadians and are impossible to implement, the prime minister and his cabinet have continued to push their environmental goals, which are in lockstep with the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”  

The proposed plan includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades.      

The reduction and eventual elimination of the use of so-called “fossil-fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum (WEF)  –  the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda  –  an organization which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.       

While Trudeau’s plan has been pushed under the guise of “sustainability,” his intention to decrease nitrous oxide emissions by limiting the use of fertilizer has been criticized by farmers. They say this will reduce profits and could even lead to food shortages.