The Ford government has raised the spectre of Ottawa regulating “almost every facet of life” if the federal carbon tax law is permitted to stand. The Liberal climate-change law is so broad, a lawyer for the province told the Appeal Court hearing, that it would give the federal government powers that would be destabilizing to Canada in the name of curbing the cumulative effects of global-warming emissions. This view seemed to evoke the alarm which occurred back in 2016 at the Wynne government’s action plan for the environment. That scheme raised fears Ontario would ban the use of natural gas in homes. In court Monday, Ontario lawyer Josh Hunter said: “They could regulate where you live. How often you drive your car.It would unbalance the federation.”
In his submissions, Hunter was categorical that Ontario’s constitutional challenge to the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act was not intended to be a debate on the realities or dangers of global warming. What’s at stake, he said, is which level of government has the power to deal with the problem. “Which measure is the best measure — the most efficient measure — is best left for legislatures to decide,” Hunter said. “Which legislature? That’s what we’re here to decide. The federal government law that kicked in on April 1 imposed a charge on gasoline and other fossil fuels as well as on industrial polluters. The law applies only in those provinces that have no carbon-pricing regime of their own that meets national standards — Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. The federal view will heard in court Tuesday.
