Supreme Court considers the constitutionality of the Liberal government’s carbon tax

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Lawyers for Saskatchewan and Ontario argued today, however, that the power does lie with the provinces and Ottawa should not be allowed to nab that power for itself.

Mitch McAdam, the director of the constitutional law branch in Saskatchewan’s justice department, said the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act, which created the carbon tax program, even says provinces have the ability to regulate greenhouse gases on their own.

Josh Hunter, the deputy director of the constitutional law branch in the office of Ontario’s attorney general, said the carbon tax policy gives Canada wide-reaching powers to regulate anything that affects greenhouse gases and treats provinces like subordinates.

“The way they’ve done it, it’s even worse because it’s not just they say they’re going to regulate it,” he told the court. “They say, ‘You regulate it the way we like it or we will regulate it.”‘

Several judges expressed doubt that Ottawa doesn’t have the power to step in when climate change is an “existential” emergency that requires an all-hands-on-deck response from every corner of the country.

Justice Michael Moldaver said “everybody as I understand it agrees that climate change is a serious threat to life on Earth as we know it,” and that even if the provinces have the power to do something about it, they don’t have to.

“If one province decides not to do it, if one province decides to go rogue, this will have an impact potentially on the whole of Canada, and other provinces that are trying their best,” said Moldaver.