Manitoba, AMC can intervene in carbon-tax case

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This article was published 25/02/2020 (1520 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Both the Manitoba government and the province’s Indigenous chiefs will ask the Supreme Court to have Ottawa stop imposing its will on the province about the federal carbon tax.

The highest court in the land has granted both the Pallister government and the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs intervener status in March hearings that will decide whether the federal carbon levy is constitutional.

The court will hear arguments from the Ontario and Saskatchewan governments, which both argue Ottawa’s carbon tax over-reaches into provincial jurisdiction.

Courts in both those provinces have sided with Ottawa, though Alberta’s top court separately found the opposite on Monday.

The AMC is urging the justices to go beyond questions of federal and provincial jurisdictions, and instead clarify how Indigenous and Canadian laws intersect.

“The lack of judicial clarity on the constitutional relationship between First Nations and settlers has perpetuated uncertainty and conflict,” reads AMC’s factum, which was completed by the Public Interest Law Centre, an advocacy centre that is part of Manitoba’s legal aid program.

Regardless of whether the Supreme Court finds that Ottawa or the provinces have jurisdiction over carbon taxes, the AMC wants the court to acknowledge in its ruling that a third level of laws — Indigenous ones — also govern Canada to an equal extent.

Submitted on Jan. 27, the AMC continually cited the Wet’suwet’en gas-pipeline dispute in British Columbia — before this month’s blockades and protests gained national attention.

“The urgency and necessity of applying a reconciliation lens to the appeal is made evident by fundamental social, legal and environmental tensions in Canada. These include pipeline blockades, violence, police actions, increased frequency and severity of extreme events including floods, droughts, wild fires and the changing of wildlife migration patterns.”

Meanwhile, the Pallister government’s filing argues that Ontario and Saskatchewan are right to oppose the federal levy on greenhouse gases.

“There would be virtually no limit to Parliament’s ability to legislate in areas of provincial jurisdiction, given the breadth of activities that create GHG emissions. This would substantially disrupt the balance of federalism,” reads the Manitoba government’s filing.

Yet unlike the Ontario and Saskatchewan governments, Manitoba’s argument hinges on a criticism that the federal levy isn’t uniform across the country.

That’s because the federal cabinet assesses whether provinces’ carbon policies are adequate, and some provinces have forged deals with Ottawa that will lead to a lower decline in carbon emissions.

“The result is an uneven application of the federal benchmark and backstop, leading to a regional patchwork of carbon-pricing regimes, of varying stringency.”

Manitoba has made the same argument in its own Federal Court case, filed last April, but put on pause until the Supreme Court rules on the other two provinces’ cases.

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca

AMC and Pallister government factums in Supreme Court carbon tax cases