Province, feds at loggerheads over climate funding
Goodale says Saskatchewan will have access to federal cash for green projects
REGINA In sharing details of the federal government’s plan to impose a carbon tax on Saskatchewan, Regina-wascana MP and cabinet minister Ralph Goodale said projects in the province will be able to access dollars earmarked for low-carbon technology.
But Saskatchewan is taking issue with the way the federal government plans on allocating those dollars.
Ottawa was definitively saying in February that Saskatchewan was not eligible to apply for the $62 million in climate-change funding allocated for the province unless it signed the Pan-canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change — something the province still has not done.
At that time, Premier Scott Moe remained adamant Saskatchewan would still apply for the funding, which comes out of the Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund.
Federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine Mckenna has said the money earmarked in that fund for Saskatchewan would be rolled into the federal Low Carbon Economy Challenge Fund. Money under that funding envelope is available to municipalities, First Nations, provinces and businesses with innovative ideas to reduce carbon emissions. It is granted through a competitive process.
“If Saskatchewan isn’t going to be serious about climate action and isn’t going to be serious about working with other provinces and territories and the federal government, then we are going to be supporting initiatives right now,” Mckenna said at the time.
Goodale said this week the four provinces — Ontario, New Brunswick, Manitoba and Saskatchewan — that are getting a federal carbon price imposed on them will be treated “equitably” when it comes to getting federal money from that fund.
“Projects from Saskatchewan will be able to access those dollars,” he said, ensuring that “at the end of the day projects … in those provinces receive the appropriate level of support from the overall fund.”
Moe’s office put out a release Tuesday saying that, despite Goodale’s comments, “this means nothing has changed.”
“Saskatchewan-based companies and organizations will be able to apply for these funds on a project-by-project basis, and will be in competition with other projects across Canada. There will be no preference given to Saskatchewan-based projects, and no say given to the Government of Saskatchewan in the distribution of these funds,” it said, accusing the federal government of putting in “minimal effort” to “communicate accurately or transparently with provinces and the media on their carbon-tax scheme.”
The federal government announced Tuesday it is accepting the provincial climate-change plan, Prairie Resilience, but does not consider it good enough to adequately address pollution, specifically when it comes to electricity generation and natural-gas pipelines.
Starting in April, Saskatchewan will be subject to a carbon tax on natural gas and electricity production, to be collected from producers and distributors. It’s expected the cost — starting at roughly four cents a litre on gasoline — will be passed on to consumers.
In its statement Tuesday, the province said, “Despite having a comprehensive climate-change strategy, which the federal government has now accepted, the federal government still refuses to provide these dollars equitably to the province of Saskatchewan, even while these funds are being distributed to other non-compliant provinces.”
Eleven projects have been submitted from the province to the federal government for access to the funding.
The province estimates that, if funded, they would result in an estimated 188-million-tonne reduction in Saskatchewan’s greenhouse gas emissions.