Catherine McKenna spouts off about court decision she hasn't read
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Summary
Saskatoon's Court of Appeal rules that Justin Trudeau's carbon tax is constitutional, but what does that mean for the rest of the country? Andrew Lawton explains why this is not the end of the battle, but rather just the beginning.
Transcript
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Yes, Justin Trudeau's carbon tax may have been found constitutional by Saskatchewan's Court of
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Appeal, but as I noted in an earlier video, that does not vindicate Justin Trudeau's alarmist
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and top-down approach to climate change, which is the very approach that precipitated
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the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act that has now become the centre of litigation in
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Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario. As noted, the Saskatchewan Court decided that
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in a 3-2 decision, the legislation was in fact constitutional. This is by no means the end of
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the battle, but rather just the beginning. What's interesting though is how the Environment
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Minister, Catherine McKenna, has decided to spin it. Now, this is a woman who is billed as a human
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rights and social justice lawyer, but I have a few questions about that lawyer bit given the
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statement that she put out, a very inaccurate statement in the wake of the Court of Appeal
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for Saskatchewan's ruling. This is an important and welcome decision in the urgent fight against
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climate change, which we know is costing Canadians and the world billions of dollars and putting
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lives at risk. A majority of the court agreed that a price on carbon pollution is an essential part of
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the global effort to limit greenhouse gas emissions. It will also ensure Canadians are better off.
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She says the court decided it was in the best interest Canadians, that they'd be better off. She
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says that the court decided that this was an essential policy in the government's toolkit to
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deal with global warming and climate change. The fact is the court did no such thing. Quite the
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contrary. Let me read from the judicial decision itself, which I would recommend Minister McKenna take a
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look at, perhaps before putting out statements on this. Under Section 6, it says right there,
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the sole issue before the court is whether Parliament has the constitutional authority to enact
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the act. The issue is not whether greenhouse gas pricing should or should not be adopted or whether
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the act is effective or fair. Those are questions to be answered by Parliament and by provincial
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legislatures, not by courts. Now, one of the issues with that line is that clearly the court is saying
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that provincial legislatures don't have the right to make these decisions because it's endorsed a
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federal government's top-down approach. But even then, it says truthfully in there that the only
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question was not whether this was good or bad policy, but whether this was something the government
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had the legislative authority constitutionally to do. And I may disagree with the court's decision on that,
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but I certainly wouldn't say that Catherine McKenna's position is correct because it just isn't.
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This was not an endorsement of the policy. This was not an evaluation of the policy's merits. It was
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simply an evaluation of the constitutional principles at stake. But what's so concerning about this is
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that the federal government has been spinning this judicial victory as an endorsement of something that
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the court didn't even touch, which is that Canadians have to pay the price because Justin Trudeau has
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decided to link up Canada to the United Nations goals on this when other parts of the world like China and India
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that are producing more in the way of emissions than Canada could ever dream of doing. And these countries are doing nothing.
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But again, Canadians are supposed to pay the price. Canadians are supposed to bear the brunt of it.
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But if we're going to have this discussion, let's at least have it honestly, which for Catherine McKenna
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would be perhaps starting with reading the decision. For True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.