Canadian Legislative Issues

Over the past several years, climate change policies have become more important in both the national and provincial legislatures. With further scientific research regarding the negative effects on the environment by large greenhouse gas emitters, political leaders have decided to take different stances on how best to deal with this overbearing issue. Some provinces, such as Quebec and Ontario, have decided that the cap-and-trade system is best suited to reduce greenhouse gases while at the same time allowing the economy to continue to grow.  

With British Columbia’s recent announcement that it will continue the unchanged carbon tax from 2012 and Alberta announcing the introduction of its own carbon tax, the West has truly differentiated itself from Central Canada. Other provinces continue to explore the idea of implementing some kind of carbon pricing policy, while some, such as Brad Wall’s province of Saskatchewan, believe they are already doing enough.

It is obvious that with these numerous divisions in carbon pricing policies, that cross-border inefficiencies have arisen. While one fleet might be encouraged or forced to use alternate fuels better for the environment, another might be able to stay the same course that it has for decades. Without proper credits or help from the provincial government in transitioning to new environmentally-friendly vehicles, fleets face the challenge of falling short on the necessary funds for such a transition.  

Although the Federal Government has promised to guide climate change policy in Canada and both it and the provincial governments have agreed to a climate change framework, there is still no leadership on carbon pricing on the national level, as of yet. In July of 2016, Federal Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Catherine McKenna, told a reporter that the Liberal Government plans on introducing a national price on carbon in the Fall.  

How this will unfold and how the different provinces will react to it is unclear. What is partially clear though is that the national price will not dismantle the current climate change policies provinces have implemented already. Therefore, the inefficiencies between provinces that different climate change policies have created will persist. This is unless Justin Trudeau and his government make a drastic decision: carbon tax or cap-and-trade?