Made-in-saskatchewan climate plan moves ahead
Province says it will not submit strategy to Ottawa for evaluation
REGINA Saskatchewan will push ahead with its own climate change plan and is refusing to submit it to the federal government for review.
The federal government wants a price on carbon emissions, starting in 2018 at $10 a tonne and rising to $50/tonne in 2022.
If provinces fail to do that, Ottawa has plans to impose its own federal backstop.
Sept. 1 marks the deadline for provinces to submit their climate change plans, but on Wednesday the Saskatchewan government simultaneously released further details of its strategy and announced it would not be submitting it for review.
“Our climate change plan does not need federal approval,” Dustin Duncan, the province’s environment minister, told an audience of mostly industry and business people at an announcement in Moose Jaw.
Contending that Ottawa is acting like “Big Brother,” the Saskatchewan government has put forward a written legal argument against a federally imposed carbon tax.
Duncan noted that it would be contradictory for Saskatchewan to submit its plan for federal approval while also arguing the federal government has no constitutional grounds to review the plan.
Essentially all of the province’s eggs are now in the basket of that legal challenge succeeding.
At stake is the risk of the federal plan being imposed on Saskatchewan, which would also mean Ottawa decides how to spend money in Saskatchewan dedicated to reducing emissions.
Already, Saskatchewan has followed through on its promise to apply for federal climate change funding despite being told by Ottawa it is not eligible for $62 million initially earmarked for the province.
Dominic Leblanc, federal minister of intergovernmental and northern affairs and internal trade, said in a statement he encourages Saskatchewan to submit the plan for evaluation.
When first announced last December, Saskatchewan’s plan was criticized by federal Environment Minister Catherine Mckenna, who argued that it wouldn’t meet federal standards because it applied to heavy industry rather than the broader economy.
While there is no explicit carbon tax in Saskatchewan’s plan, it does call for a “carbon offset” to be purchased by emitters to offset their greenhouse gas emissions, as well as a best performance credit for companies demonstrating low emissions or investments in reducing their emissions.
But details of what that will specifically look like remain unclear. The plan from Saskatchewan still has several unknowns attached to it (such as how industry will be able to use carbon offsets to meet compliance standards).
However, emission “performance standards” based on production from large industrial emitters, such as potash mines and pulp mills, were released on Wednesday. Those facilities generate 11 per cent of the province’s emissions. If Saskatchewan’s plan works, overall emissions will be reduced by 1.1 per cent by 2030.
Leblanc’s statement said the federal government was “pleased that Saskatchewan has committed to putting a price on pollution ... it is an acknowledgment from the province that putting a price on pollution is an effective way to tackle climate change while growing the economy at the same time.”
NDP opposition critic David Forbes said he was “really disappointed” with the plan, specifically because it has too many unknowns.