{"id":202272,"date":"2019-02-15T00:19:58","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T05:19:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=202272"},"modified":"2019-02-15T00:19:58","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T05:19:58","slug":"saskatchewans-challenge-of-federal-carbon-tax-in-hands-of-appeal-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/02\/15\/saskatchewans-challenge-of-federal-carbon-tax-in-hands-of-appeal-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Saskatchewan’s challenge of federal carbon tax in hands of Appeal court"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Lawyers representing provincial governments, Indigenous groups and environmentalists from across Canada presented their cases before the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal. (File Photo By Masalai\/Wikimedia <\/a>commons, Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

REGINA — Five Saskatchewan judges have reserved their decision on the constitutionality of a federally imposed carbon tax after two days of hearings in Regina.<\/p>\n

Lawyers representing provincial governments, Indigenous groups and environmentalists from across Canada presented their cases before the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal.<\/p>\n

Saskatchewan has asked the court to rule on whether a federal carbon tax is constitutional. The province contends such a levy is not because it wouldn’t be evenly applied across all jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Ottawa and its supporters had their turn to argue. They said the federal government has the power to impose a carbon tax because Section 91 of the Constitution states it can pass laws \u201cfor peace, order and good government of Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

This power can be asserted because climate change and greenhouse gas emissions are a matter of a national concern, a lawyer for the Attorney General of Canada told the court.<\/p>\n

Sharlene Telles-Langdon said carbon pollutants have \u201ccumulative dimensions\u201d and don’t respect geographical boundaries once they are emitted into the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne province’s refusal or failure to sufficiently regulate greenhouse gas emissions impacts Canada as a whole,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Telles-Langdon said Ottawa looks at greenhouse gases from a national perspective and that constitutionally provinces are unable to address Canada’s overall emissions level.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s not necessary for each of the systems in each province to be the same to achieve the objectives of the legislation or to address the matter of national concern,\u201d Telles-Langdon said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is necessary is that a pricing system applies throughout Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

A lawyer for British Columbia’s attorney general, intervening on Ottawa’s side, said emissions affect other provinces and the federal government is acting on a duty to protect these interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fate of the planet is involved so it’s something that the federal government should be given leeway to do,\u201d said Gareth Morley.<\/p>\n

In response, Saskatchewan’s legal counsel argued that Ottawa is seeking \u201cexclusive federal jurisdiction\u201d to deal with greenhouse gas emissions because these pollutants are a part of daily life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis type of jurisdiction would give the federal government the authorization to pass legislation that would eviscerate provincial powers,\u201d Mitch McAdam said.<\/p>\n

He closed the provincial government’s case by reiterating his opening statement made Wednesday that the issue before the court is the divisions of power, not saving the planet from climate change.<\/p>\n

Saskatchewan’s anti-carbon tax allies, such as New Brunswick and Ontario, earlier argued that Ottawa is overreaching into provincial jurisdiction and in doing so is threatening the balance of federalism.<\/p>\n

Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Ontario and Manitoba do not have their own carbon-pricing plan and will be subject to Ottawa’s fuel tax starting in April.<\/p>\n

The federal government’s carbon price starts at a minimum at $20 a tonne and is to rise $10 each year until 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

REGINA — Five Saskatchewan judges have reserved their decision on the constitutionality of a federally imposed carbon tax after two …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":202275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-202272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","mauthors-stephanie-taylor","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}