Supreme Court weighs carbon tax legal fight
Supreme Court justices pushed lawyers from Saskatchewan and Ontario hard Tuesday, demanding to know how Canada can help stop climate change if any single province chooses not to help.
But several of the justices also raised concerns that the federal government’s carbon tax legislation might give Ottawa too much discretion.
The issues were raised during the first of two days of hearings this week on whether the federal government’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act is constitutional.
The act was implemented in 2019, imposing a carbon price in any province without an equivalent system of its own. The appeals courts in Saskatchewan and Ontario ruled the law was constitutional in 2019, but in February of this year the Alberta Court of Appeal said it was not.
Many of the nine justices seemed seized with the notion that provinces may have the authority currently to put in place measures to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that cause to climate change but that doesn’t mean they have to do it.
That, combined with the crisis climate change poses to Canada and the world, and the fact one province not acting could stymie Canada’s overall efforts to combat climate change, could make it an issue of national concern, the judges mused.
“We’re into a situation now where everybody as I understand it agrees that climate change is a serious threat to life on Earth as we know it,” said Justice Michael Moldaver.
He added the “overriding critical concern” to him is that there is no guarantee provinces will all act on it.
“If one province decides not to do it, if one province decides to go rogue, this will have an impact potentially on the whole of Canada, and other provinces that are trying their best.”
Justice Rosalie Abella echoed those sentiments, pointing out that emissions from one province can impact another.
“They can collectively choose to deal with those issues but they don’t have Plexiglas at their borders and the effect of not choosing to engage in strategies that are ultimately helpful to the rest of the country has enormous implications,” she said.