Province’s carbon tax arguments ‘solid’: Moe
REGINA Saskatchewan’s premier believes the province put forth a “very solid case” during this week’s court battle with the federal government over the carbon tax.
For two days, a five-judge panel of the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal in Regina heard legal arguments on the constitutionality of Ottawa’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act.
Speaking to reporters Friday, Premier Scott Moe repeated many of the arguments presented by the province’s lawyers on Wednesday and Thursday, mainly that this court battle is not a debate about climate change, or even the carbon tax. Instead, he said the province’s case revolves around the federal government’s alleged intrusion into areas of provincial jurisdiction.
Moe compared Saskatchewan’s case to Alberta’s National Energy Program and language rights issues in Quebec.
“What we see is Saskatchewan saying (to the) federal government that you were intruding in our provincial area of regulation and you shouldn’t be doing that,” said Moe.
Moe said the province disagrees with the government’s use of Canada’s Constitution to put a tax in some areas and not in others. The federal government has said it will impose a carbon tax on any province that does not bring forward one. The province believes the feds have no right to do that. Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick are also fighting the federal government’s right to impose a carbon tax on provinces that choose not to put their own in place.
“The Constitution allows the equal treatment of Canadians across the nation, not to be selective with the tax that comes in just because the federal government doesn’t feel that the policy in that particular area is approved by them,” said Moe.
The federal government’s case is that it has authority over matters of national concern, which climate change would fall under.
Sharlene Telles-Langdon, a lawyer for the federal government, argued the federal government is only trying to regulate the “cumulative” aspects of greenhouse gases that affect the entire country.
“One province’s refusal or failure to sufficiently regulate greenhouse gas emissions impacts Canada as a whole,” Telles-Langdon said during the court proceedings.
The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has reserved its decision. Mitch McAdam, one of the lawyers representing Saskatchewan, said he hoped the judges would have a ruling by April 1, the date the carbon tax on fuel comes into effect.