National carbon price elusive

OTTAWA • A national price on carbon emissions appears to be no closer to reality as Canada’s environment ministers meet Monday in Montreal to begin hammering out a pan-Canadian climate plan.

Provincial ministers say a federal-provincial working group of officials that spent the summer looking at carbon pricing failed to reach a consensus on how to equate direct carbon taxes, such as British Columbia’s, to capand-trade carbon markets like the one Quebec is developing with Ontario.

And that’s set the talks back to a strict interpretation of last March’s Vancouver Declaration, where provincial and territorial leaders signed on to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Paris climate commitments with an agreement to examine market mechanisms for carbon pricing within their own jurisdictions.

“That’s the key issue,” said Quebec Environment and Climate Minister David Heurtel, who is currently the chair of the Canadian Council of Environment Ministers. “This all started with the federal government talking about a national carbon tax. Quebec, Ontario and other provinces have serious issues because, first of all, a national carbon tax hurts existing systems like cap-and-trade. And also it does not respect the Vancouver Declaration principles. And also it does not respect provincial jurisdictions.”

But for anyone hoping to see the clear outlines of a pan-Canadian plan when the meeting wraps up, “that may be a misplaced expectation based on where we are in the process,” said B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polack.

“Really, this comes down to adding up how many megatonnes (of CO2 emissions) you need to reduce and finding ways to reduce them,” said Polack.