PERSISTENCE PAYS OFF FOR CLARK ON CARBON
Federal pricing scheme eventually provided everything she hoped for
Long before Christy Clark arrived in Ottawa last week to discuss carbon pricing, the B.C. premier laid out concerns that the federally authored scheme be evenly applied and independently vetted.
“We have every interest in talking about how we could be equal across the country in carbon pricing,” Clark told reporters back in March when the country’s first ministers gathered for a conference on climate action in Vancouver. “From our perspective, we sure would like the rest of the country to catch up.”
But as Clark had to concede, B.C., with the country’s longest-standing and highest rate of carbon taxation at $30 a tonne of emissions, was nevertheless failing to meet its target for reducing greenhouse-gas-reduction targets.
“It’s proof of how hard it is to meet those targets,” said Clark in a March 5 interview with host Chris Hall on CBC’s The House. “We should try and contain our enthusiasm for reaching ever further before we even know how we’re going to get to what we’ve already said.”
Fast-forward to the Oct. 3 announcement of the federal government’s carbon pricing schedule, with national targets of $10 a tonne starting in 2018, climbing in $10 increments to $50 a tonne in 2022.
On the face of it, Ottawa’s pricing vindicated the B.C. Liberal decision to hold off increasing the provincial rate until the country catches up.
The nation won’t reach $30 a tonne until 2020, by which time British Columbians will have been paying that for eight years.
Still, the Clark government continued to express concerns about the federal willingness to allow widely differing methods of carbon pricing — carbon taxation versus cap-and-trade systems — without any independent means of verifying whether the prices were comparable.
“Reasonable comparability,” ought to be fundamental to any national system of carbon pricing, argued B.C. Environment Minister Mary Polak. Plus for B.C., the bottom line was that the determination “should not be unilateral.” There matters stood until last week, when Clark signalled that the passage of two months had not diminished the B.C. government’s concerns.
“How do we create equity between all the provinces so that everybody truly has caught up to B.C.?” challenged Clark on the eve of her departure for Ottawa. “If we don’t decide that first, we could be in a situation where B.C. and Alberta both will be really disadvantaged versus Central Canada if our carbon pricing is just so much more expensive.”
She cited a draft analysis from the independent Cana- dian Ecofiscal Commission, which compared carbon pricing in the cap-and-trade provinces of Ontario and Quebec with the scheduled carbon-taxing B.C. and Alberta.
It reckoned the cap-andtrade provinces would be paying $15 to $19 a tonne of emissions, depending on the calendar year and method of calculation compared to the $30 rate already in place here in B.C.
“When Canadians don’t think that taxes are fair and when Canadians think that one region is going to be disadvantaged versus another, these kinds of proposals never have a long life,” the B.C. premier cautioned.
All part of her renewed pitch for some sort of independent levelling of the playing field. As opposed to something “dictated exclusively by the federal government” which might favour the central provinces over the West.
Clark revisited the theme in talking to reporters on the way to Friday’s session in Ottawa.
“In the proposal as it stands, Ontario and Quebec will be judged based on their emissions, regardless of their price,” argued Clark in her reading of the federal proposal.
“B.C., Alberta and all other provinces will be judged on their price regardless of their emissions. … If the issue is we want to have a national tax, let’s make sure that every Canadian is paying the same amount regardless of where they live; that no province can walk away with an incredible deal at the expense of everybody else.”
By my count, that was the fourth time that the B.C. government had publicly underscored the need for a mechanism to determine fairness and equity in the national carbon-pricing regime.
Still, that did not stop unnamed federal officials from accusing Clark of lastminute grandstanding for the benefit of the folks back home when she announced, near the end of Friday’s proceedings, that in the absence of the aforementioned mechanism, she would not sign the national carbon-pricing regime.
Such public posturing by holdout premiers being unprecedented in the long history of national conferences, observers were, of course, shocked, shocked.
But in a matter of minutes, the feds produced an annex to the agreement that did include such a mechanism, claiming they had meant to put it there all along.
The key provision pledged the country’s governments to craft a review of carbon pricing, including “expert assessment” of stringency, effectiveness and comparability among the various models. An interim report is to be delivered in 2020.
After which, the revised document goes on to acknowledge, “B.C. will assess the interim study and determine a path forward to meet climate objectives.” So the province could opt for means other than increasing the carbon tax to reduce emissions.
In short, Clark got what she’d been calling for, namely independent assessment of the national plan, plus what might be an escape hatch if she doesn’t like the findings.
All presuming she is even around to make the call, which of course is dependent on what British Columbians decide in casting their ballots next May.
Let’s make sure that every Canadian is paying the same amount regardless of where they live. PREMIER CHRISTY CLARK