I've said this in here before. I had a friend who was a Professor of Economics. Here's what he said; "If you ask three economists the same question, you'll get 4 different answers. And the key word in your comment is "can". Can does not necessarily equal "do" or "does".
There's high taxes on tobacco. At least 17% of the country still smokes. There's high taxes on alcohol. Hasn't ended alcoholism or drunk driving. The price of gas in Canada has almost quintupled since I started driving, most of that in the form of taxes. And yet there's more cars on the road than ever.
The City of London, England instituted a new tax (fee) for driving a motor vehicle in the downtown core area. The idea was to reduce congestion and thus reduce emissions in the heart of the city. The idea worked, for a while. At first people balked at the idea of paying just to drive downtown but after a while they decided the convenience was still worth the cost. As such, congestion is pretty much back to where it was before the fee.
The carbon tax is just another one of those taxes. It won't change people's behaviour so much as it will make sure there's no further investment in our resource sector. Keep in mind that about 70% of Canada's GDP comes from resource extraction and exports. Seems kind'a stupid and short sighted to put so much effort into killing that sector off before finding a viable replacement. We've already taken a shit kicking from the US auto industry, let's not be in such a rush to kick the shit out of our own resource sector.
Ah yes.
If cigarettes were taxed less people would smoke more. Booze taxed less drink more. Fuel taxed less use more. Congestion is due to population, lack of good public transportation, cities that were never designed to hold a population so dense like mile high condos side by side and urban sprawl.