Juno News - April 17, 2019


Andrew Lawton re-caps day two of Ontario’s carbon tax hearing


Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

163.82509

Word count

1,089

Sentence count

53


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In the second day of day two of the Supreme Court of Canada's hearing on the federal government's challenge to Ontario's carbon pricing plan, a number of justices of the Court of Appeal had some spirited questions for Justice Mcpherson.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 I'm outside Osgoode Hall in downtown Toronto just after day two of the carbon tax court reference taking place wherein the Ontario government challenging the constitutionality of the federal government's Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act.
00:00:23.840 This was the day where the federal government ultimately put forward its defence against the challenges that were put forward on day one, Monday, by Ontario's lawyer.
00:00:33.920 And what was interesting is it was a far more spirited exchange than Monday's in many respects with several questions put by a number of the justices on the Court of Appeal dais basically asking for an answer to the question of where the limitation of the federal government's power is likely to be if the federal government's argument is accepted.
00:00:52.460 And here's one clip of that exchange.
00:00:54.920 We're trying to pin you down on what the matter of this is.
00:00:58.860 If it is reduction of greenhouse gases, if that's what the purpose of this is, that suggests a much wider lawmaking authority than simply establishing a pricing regime.
00:01:10.600 And that's what we heard from your friends yesterday.
00:01:12.940 And you haven't, for my satisfaction at least, dealt with that problem.
00:01:16.220 I don't know where this begins and ends in terms of, if this act is constitutional and it's upheld on the basis that the subject matter is a national concern, POGG matter, of reducing greenhouse gases, I'm not sure how much further you can go.
00:01:33.060 But I do suggest to you, and I've tried to suggest this this morning, if this only addresses a quarter of the greenhouse gas problem, you're going to want to do more federally.
00:01:42.800 And so I want to know where that begins and ends in terms of your jurisdiction to do that federally.
00:01:46.920 Your friend says it extends rights to whether or not homeowners can have wood-burning fireplaces.
00:01:53.460 Do you say yes or are they wrong in that?
00:01:55.460 I need to know that.
00:01:56.560 Well, we think in the abstract, that would be beyond federal reach under the POG power.
00:02:05.380 But again, the limits come from the case-by-case analysis and from the application of the PIF and substance doctors, from the rigor of the national concern test, and from the evidence that's required to demonstrate that it is substantive, directed towards addressing that national concern at a national level.
00:02:32.500 Well, the dividing line is that that legislation must be addressing the national aspects of the problem.
00:02:43.040 Now, as you can see there in that clip, we don't necessarily have a clear answer, or at least not an answer that the justice is accepting as meeting the threshold he thinks needs to be set by this.
00:02:55.580 And I want to play another clip for you as well that speaks to, again, that spirited nature of today's proceedings.
00:03:01.080 This is Justice McPherson asking why pricing, in the eyes of the federal government, is the be-all and end-all for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
00:03:10.160 But over a 14-year period, Ontario emissions are down 22 percent.
00:03:17.620 Ontario has definitely achieved reductions, and largely through the closure of coal-fired emissions.
00:03:24.560 We don't care how they achieve it, we don't care how they achieve it.
00:03:27.220 They've achieved reductions of 22 percent.
00:03:30.040 Why don't you just leave them alone?
00:03:33.720 Ontario has had a great result, if not in one year, over a 14-year period.
00:03:39.420 Ontario has had great results.
00:03:41.780 Unfortunately, Ontario can do nothing about what is happening in other provinces.
00:03:48.060 So Ontario has to pay an extra burden, because other provinces are failing.
00:03:55.620 So I'm not sure why don't you leave them alone is a legal argument, but it speaks to what I think Ontario was pushing for,
00:04:02.720 which is a clear answer from the federal government on why provinces cannot be left to their own devices,
00:04:08.380 especially if, in the case of Ontario, they're having some success at reducing emissions.
00:04:13.320 I remind you that Ontario's emissions in the last 14 years have gone down 22 percent,
00:04:18.640 and they've done this without a carbon price.
00:04:21.200 But unfortunately, this doesn't actually give them any credit or curry any favour with the federal government.
00:04:27.380 So a lot of the discussion today was centred on this idea of the urgency of climate action by governments,
00:04:34.440 and the federal governments claim that no province could deal with this in isolation.
00:04:38.420 They all have to work together, and if one doesn't do it, the others are going to suffer.
00:04:43.680 Now, this is the fundamental defence that the federal government is putting forward here.
00:04:47.800 However, I do have to point out that one of the big challenges is that the government's only answer
00:04:53.860 to how it limits its own power is, just trust us.
00:04:57.060 The federal government's lawyer said that the federal government is able to, in future legislation,
00:05:03.200 put limits to the legislation in the legislation.
00:05:06.440 Basically, putting forward the argument that even if the federal government is, in this case,
00:05:11.240 given carte blanche to claim provincial jurisdiction,
00:05:14.240 it's not going to cause provinces to lose their autonomy in the future.
00:05:18.760 And this was, we saw, a bit of a sticking point with some of the justices.
00:05:22.280 Now, look, the federal government's going to have an opportunity to speak again on Thursday,
00:05:27.520 and the provincial government will also have the opportunity to speak on Thursday.
00:05:31.220 But it was very interesting to see that the judges, at least in their questions.
00:05:36.880 Now, this doesn't mean they've drawn conclusions.
00:05:38.840 This means they're probing to get an answer.
00:05:40.940 But the judges did not seem to have their challenges satisfied,
00:05:45.120 except for after they had put them to Canada's lawyer several times over.
00:05:50.400 So that'll be something to watch.
00:05:51.600 And again, you can't extrapolate from a judge asking a question or two or four
00:05:56.340 that a judge has necessarily concluded something.
00:05:59.100 They're playing devil's advocate.
00:06:00.680 They could be just genuinely trying to get an answer on the record.
00:06:04.020 But if those are any indication, it shows that there was a lacking of clarity
00:06:08.460 from Canada's position on this that was not really matched from Ontario on day one.
00:06:16.080 Because the day wrapped up a little bit early,
00:06:17.900 we got a bit of a head start on things that are supposed to be happening on Wednesday.
00:06:21.940 New Brunswick led off with its support of Ontario's position.
00:06:25.160 And we know that on Wednesday, British Columbia,
00:06:28.140 which is taking the Canadian government side, will be intervening.
00:06:32.060 And Saskatchewan, which is standing up for Ontario, will be intervening as well.
00:06:36.200 Two days to go of this.
00:06:37.380 For True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.