Indigenous groups say climate law crucial

The federal government has no choice but to tackle greenhouse gas emissions given the catastrophic impact unchecked global warming will have on Canada’s Indigenous people, Ontario’s top court heard on Wednesday.

As such, First Nations groups said, Ottawa’s carbon-price law helps protect their constitutional rights to the hunting and fishing on which their very survival depends.

Amir Attaran, a lawyer for the northern Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, told the Court of Appeal that scientists predict temperatures in the Far North could rise by as much as seven degrees in a single generation. “A seven-degree change is monumental,” Attaran said.

The federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, which levies a charge on gasoline, other fossil fuels and on industrial polluters, kicked in on April 1 in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick.

Attaran called the law a legitimate attempt to deal with an issue of national concern.

The Assembly of First Nations, another of the 14 intervenors in the Appeal Court hearing, agreed a national response to pollution is critical given the vulnerability of First Nations to climate change.

Canada, with about 0.5 per cent of the global population, produces 2 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions, court heard. Randy Christensen, speaking for the David Suzuki Foundation, said Canada and the world will soon “pass the point of no return” in dealing with what he called a national and global emergency. The federal law was passed in response to the dire situation and even Ontario doesn’t allege there is no emergency, he said.

The act currently imposes a charge of four cents a litre on gasoline in Ontario.