Many years from now, when textbooks about the history of Canada are written, they might just say: It all changed at an SFL training.
A Canadian named Garreth Conner was at a conference for some of the most active volunteers of Students For Liberty’s North America region. While relaxing after a long day of learning and networking, he and some fellow coordinators started talking about the newly enacted carbon tax that had been controversial in Canada.
As Garreth knew, having been trained and educated by Students For Liberty, carbon taxes make energy more expensive, which hurts the poor most of all. They constrain business opportunities, and reverse gains that have enabled humans to live in challenging climates, like Canada’s, comfortably and safely. And, in Garreth’s view, they would make it harder for young Canadians like him to gain financial independence from their parents.
In an offhand comment, someone said: “We should do something about that tax.” But to Garreth Conner, it was not an offhand comment; it was a call to action. Because Garreth dedicated the next year of his life to doing something about that tax.
And that’s how the Student Petition Against the Carbon Tax (Student PACT) was born.
Garreth led an initiative among Canadian SFLers to take the Student PACT to every major university in all 10 provinces. They ended up with tables, activities, and petition gatherings at more than 30 universities. They also held protests outside of nine of the fourteen legislative buildings in Canada. At each stop, Garreth would arrange fake bricks into a “wall of taxes” that young people in Canada are facing — a wall constructed by taxes and regulations from the government.
They hoped to collect 1,000 signatures. They not only surpassed 1,000, but the Student PACT’s tour across Canada also amassed more than 30,000 views on social media platforms.
It would have been a fun story if it ended there. But it doesn’t. One person they met along the way was a Member of Parliament: Jamil Jivani. Garreth and his team convinced him to officially bring the petition to the House of Commons.
“We the undersigned,” Jivani read out in November of 2024, “call upon the government of Canada to remove the Carbon Tax to alleviate the ongoing affordability crisis that is causing students and people of Canada to struggle.”
That call was heard loud and clear. The consumer side of the tax, on gasoline and home heating, was killed: set to $0 on the federal level. Then, on March 31, 2025, Garreth and his fellow Student For Liberty Leam held another protest outside the office of British Columbia Premier David Eby. And the next day, following the federal government’s lead, the government of British Columbia fully repealed the carbon tax in that province.
Through sheer wit and grit — and with a deep philosophical commitment to free-market environmentalism instilled in him by the Students For Liberty network — Garreth Conner and his fellow Canadian SFL volunteers changed the law in Canada. And they are far from done. Their sights are now set on repealing a ban on gas cars that is due to go into effect within the next decade.
Those textbooks about the history of Canada are being written today. And Garreth Conner has the pen.