Farmscape for May 2, 2018

Saskatchewan's Minister of Justice is confident federal carbon tax legislation can be successfully challenged because it imposes a carbon tax on some provinces but not others.
The Government of Saskatchewan has launched a constitutional reference case in the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal to challenge the federal government’s ability to impose a carbon tax on the province.
Don Morgan, Saskatchewan's Attorney General and Minister of Justice, says Saskatchewan believes the federal approach being taken on this matter is unconstitutional.

Clip-Don Morgan-Minister of Justice Saskatchewan:
I think all of the provinces want to do everything they can to improve or reduce where they stand with carbon emissions.
We know that that's something that's necessary and we had been working with the federal government to try and develop a program that we thought was workable and that they thought was workable.
The federal government is focused only on having a carbon tax.
We disagree strongly that that is productive or beneficial so when they introduced their bill C-74 then we moved forward with a challenge to that saying that it is unconstitutional.
We are doing that on the basis that it is inappropriate and unconstitutional for the government to levy different tax rates or different penalties against different provinces.
If you have a carbon regime that the government approves of then you'll be taxed at one rate.
If not then you'll be taxed at a different rate.
It is just as offensive to do that as to say GST in one province is going to be five percent and seven percent in another province, totally unacceptable, totally inconsistent with any concept of federalism and, the more we look at it, the more satisfied we are that our position is very sound.

Morgan notes the federal government has indicated a desire to bring the legislation into force early in the new year so Saskatchewan would like to have the matter argued in early fall so a court of appeal decision could come down this calendar year and the province would be in a solid position when the federal government wants to impose the tax.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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