‘The level of disrespect shown by the Prime Minister and his government today is stunning’: Brad Wall

Premier Brad Wall is ripping into the federal government after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s announcement of a federal tax on carbon emissions Monday.

“I cannot believe that while the country’s environment ministers were meeting on a so-called collaborative climate change plan, the Prime Minister stood in the House of Commons and announced a carbon tax unilaterally,” Wall said in a statement.

“This meeting is not worth the CO2 emissions it took for environment ministers to get there,” the statement continued. “The level of disrespect shown by the Prime Minister and his government today is stunning. This is a betrayal of the statements made by the Prime Minister in Vancouver this March. And this new tax will damage our economy.”

Trudeau announced the government would establish a “floor price” of $10 a tonne on carbon pollution in 2018. That price will rise to $50 a tonne by 2022.

Saskatchewan’s Environment Minister Scott Moe said he is concerned for families in the province following a carbon pricing announcement from the federal government.

Provinces have the option of either introducing a carbon tax or putting a cap-and-trade system in place that would be “stringent enough” to meet or exceed those federal targets. If provinces don’t play along, Trudeau said, a tax would be implemented by the federal government on them. Any revenue generated from the tax, Trudeau told the House of Commons, would stay in the province it came from.

The announcement was made in Ottawa to kick off a debate to support climate goals the feds committed to in Paris.

It also happened as the federal environment minister was set to meet with her provincial counterparts to hash out details of a carbon pricing plan.

Long a critic of such a plan, the Saskatchewan government raised concern and surprise over the announcement.

Moe said the carbon tax will cost each family in the province about $1,250 a year and the province $2.5 billion, while at the same time threatening jobs in the energy sector.

“We need to assess what that will mean,” Moe told reporters in Montreal.

Wall has long said the province cannot afford a carbon tax, especially since the energy sector is already seeing lower profits.

“As I have said many times before, we are having the wrong conversation in Canada,” Wall said in his statement. “The national focus on carbon pricing holds the lowest potential for reducing emissions, while potentially doing the greatest harm to the Canadian economy. We produce less than two per cent of global GHG emissions. Whatever impact the federal carbon tax will have on Canada’s emissions, global GHG emissions will continue to rise because of the developing world’s reliance on coal-fired electricity. __canada can make an important contribution in the battle against climate change by developing made-in-Canada solutions in areas like power production, transportation, natural resource development, manufacturing and construction.”

On Monday, Moe suggested the federal government forcing a tax could be on par with Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program, which was introduced in 1980 and led to ongoing animosity between western provinces and the federal Liberals.

Wall had previously threatened legal action against the federal government imposing a tax on provincial crown corporations, such as SaskEnergy.

“We’ll have to look at what our opportunities are,” said Moe, when asked about the possibility of a legal challenge on Monday.

More to come …