Ottawa defends carbon price tax

Argues climate change a national concern under good government provision

OTTAWA— The federal government defended its carbon price law in Ontario’s top court Tuesday, arguing Parliament can enforce a minimum levy across Canada because reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a legitimate national concern under the constitution.

Sharlene Telles-Langdon, a lawyer with the federal Justice Department, said Canada’s Liberal government had the authority to pass the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, which is being challenged by Ontario and other provinces as an unconstitutional intrusion into provincial jurisdiction.

She said the impacts of emissions that cause climate change cross provincial and international boundaries, and that Canada’s chosen tool to combat this problem — mandating that each province has a minimum price on carbon emissions — will be undermined if provinces are allowed to opt out.

“It is a measure that needs to apply throughout Canada,” Telles-Langdon said Tuesday, addressing the Ontario Court of Appeal where the provincial government’s constitutional challenge is being heard this week. “Recognizing that as a federal power … has not unseated the bounds of federalism.”

The federal pollution pricing act says all provinces and territories must have their own carbon price — either through a tax or cap-and-trade system — that meets Ottawa’s minimum standard of $20-per-tonne of emissions this year. Those that refuse to do so will see the federal “backstop” imposed, a pricing scheme that includes the levy on fuel that Premier Doug Ford calls a “job-killing carbon tax,” as well as tax rebates to individuals and households that Ottawa says outweigh the cost of the carbon price for most people.

The backstop has already been implemented in Ontario, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Manitoba — all provinces that argue Canada’s carbon price law is unconstitutional.

Monday, lawyers representing Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government denounced the law as a “massive expansion ” of federal power because they said it allows Ottawa to regulate whatever emits greenhouse gases — a broad scope that provincial lawyer Josh Hunter said would apply to “basically all human activities.”

Telles-Langdon said Tuesday that the federal government believes the law is constitutional because the accumulation of greenhouse gas emissions has a national dimension that justifies a uniform, national response under the constitution’s “peace, order and good government” provision.

She argued the federal backstop does not “displace” provincial authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, but rather sets a minimum standard to ensure Ottawa’s decision to fight climate change with carbon pricing isn’t undermined by provinces that refuse to participate. Quebec, for instance, has its own cap-andtrade system, while British Columbia has had a carbon tax since 2008.

Canada’s latest annual tally of national greenhouse gas emissions, submitted Monday to the UN, shows emissions have only dropped 2 per cent below 2005 levels as of 2017, and that national emissions actually increased by 1 per cent from 2016 to 2017. Canada has pledged to cut emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

The Ontario court challenge is set to resume Wednesday.