Juno News - April 16, 2019


Giving taxpayers a voice at the Carbon Tax Trial - Andrew Lawton with Christine Van Geyn


Episode Stats


Length

5 minutes

Words per minute

168.49184

Word count

877

Sentence count

37


Summary

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

The Supreme Court of Canada is hearing the case of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation v. Ontario on whether or not the government's proposed carbon tax is a tax in principle and in pith and substance. In this episode, I speak with Canadian Taxpayer's Federation Director Christine Van Gein about her organization's position on the matter.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Out front of Osgoode Hall where the week-long constitutional reference is taking place.
00:00:10.560 One of the interveners in this case is the Canadian Taxpayers Federation,
00:00:14.320 represented at least in part by lawyer Christine Van Gein,
00:00:17.820 with whom I've had the pleasure of chatting on many occasions,
00:00:20.080 but never in this attire.
00:00:21.760 So thanks very much for taking the time.
00:00:23.400 Yeah, thanks for having me.
00:00:24.560 So really in a nutshell here,
00:00:26.420 I know interveners haven't been given a huge amount of time,
00:00:28.640 but what is the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's approach to this question?
00:00:32.860 Yeah, so we've been given about 10 minutes,
00:00:34.340 and we'll be making our arguments on Wednesday.
00:00:36.540 We're adopting everything that the Ontario Attorney-General has said,
00:00:40.520 and we're going to be expanding upon their argument about whether or not this is a tax.
00:00:45.060 We're arguing that it is a tax in pits and substance,
00:00:48.680 but it's not properly enacted because it's not enacted explicitly.
00:00:53.400 Taxes need to be enacted explicitly by Parliament.
00:00:56.380 This is really enacted sort of as a skeleton regime with all of the details,
00:01:02.040 when it applies, who it applies to, and how much it applies.
00:01:06.580 That's all filled in by regulation instead of enacted explicitly by Parliament.
00:01:12.480 So it's neither a valid tax, nor is it a regulatory charge.
00:01:17.740 And we're concerned for taxpayers because if you give the federal government the power
00:01:21.800 to enact things that are essentially taxes,
00:01:25.720 but they don't need to comply with constitutional requirements,
00:01:29.320 and the government can just call them regulatory charges,
00:01:32.660 that's going to be a big problem in the future,
00:01:34.720 and we shouldn't empower the federal government that way.
00:01:37.140 If the federal government has the authority to levy taxes and to levy regulatory charges,
00:01:42.500 why does that distinction matter here, if the government has the ability to do it?
00:01:46.820 Because they need to do it properly.
00:01:48.540 That's what our constitution requires.
00:01:50.740 And we're going to be arguing on Wednesday
00:01:52.260 that they haven't met those constitutional requirements.
00:01:55.180 If you want to do something, you need to comply with the constitution.
00:01:57.860 That's what it's there for.
00:01:59.140 And we're proud to be here to stand up for taxpayers and say that they deserve that.
00:02:03.760 One of the things that came up when Ontario was delivering its opening arguments
00:02:07.600 is this idea that the carbon tax is currently put forward in the legislation
00:02:12.000 tends to occupy this twilight zone where,
00:02:14.880 and there was actually an exchange with the associate chief justice about this,
00:02:17.720 it's not really a tax in the eyes of the law,
00:02:20.240 it's not really a regulatory charge.
00:02:22.320 My question as someone who's not a lawyer coming into this
00:02:25.000 is for Canadians that distinction is not particularly relevant.
00:02:29.520 I mean that idea of a tax in practice not being a tax in law
00:02:33.240 seems like a confusing one for the people that are paying for it.
00:02:35.940 Yeah, so I think if you talk to anyone who's filling up their car at a gas station,
00:02:39.880 they're going to say this feels like a tax.
00:02:42.760 And that's what we mean when we use the term in pith and substance.
00:02:46.600 This is something that it acts like a tax, it feels like a tax, it is a tax.
00:02:51.840 And the thing that matters if the government's going to impose a tax
00:02:55.360 is that they impose it in a way that meets the constitutional requirements
00:02:59.200 set out in our constitution.
00:03:01.740 So the government needs to comply with that,
00:03:04.440 and that's what we're asking for.
00:03:05.940 The nightmare scenario, let's say that the court rules on Ontario's side
00:03:10.460 and ultimately on your side on this,
00:03:12.440 could the federal government reintroduce the identical legislation
00:03:15.300 but call it a tax and it would be in the clear?
00:03:18.020 Yeah, if they were explicit in how they enacted this,
00:03:21.040 if they enacted a proper taxing power,
00:03:23.620 then it could be, depending on what they did,
00:03:26.880 I mean it's hard to comment on hypothetical legislation,
00:03:29.220 but if they did do things properly,
00:03:32.220 it would be a different story.
00:03:33.320 The thing is, in this legislation, they haven't.
00:03:36.120 And that I think is so central to what you said earlier about the fairness to taxpayers here,
00:03:40.580 is that if you are going to put a tax on people,
00:03:43.120 you need to be a lot more forthright about it.
00:03:45.080 Yeah, we call it taxation only with representation, right?
00:03:48.040 It's a very fundamental principle of our constitution.
00:03:50.040 So I know it's not advantageous to necessarily predict how the week is likely to unfold,
00:03:56.320 but I know that some of the interveners have put forward their own positions on this,
00:04:01.240 as you have,
00:04:01.960 but their perspective is more about the urgency of climate action
00:04:05.720 and not about the constitutionality of it.
00:04:08.680 Are those taken into consideration in a court case like this?
00:04:12.320 I mean, those seem to be policy issues and policy questions
00:04:16.500 that are not necessarily legal issues,
00:04:19.440 but they're couched in legal terms.
00:04:22.420 In my view, this is really a question of jurisdiction and constitutionality.
00:04:28.220 When we get into kind of unwritten principles,
00:04:31.220 which some of the interveners are arguing,
00:04:33.120 you're on a lot shakier ground.
00:04:35.560 Ontario Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Christine Van Gein,
00:04:38.940 thanks for your work and thanks for your time.
00:04:40.440 Thank you.
00:04:42.320 Thank you.