TORONTO — The federal and Ontario governments are set to square off in the province’s top court this week over Ottawa’s climate change law in a fight experts say is as much political and ideological as it is legal.
Like Saskatchewan did recently — a decision there is pending — the Ontario government is asking its Court of Appeal to decide whether the federal law is constitutional. In essence, Ontario argues Ottawa is intruding on provincial jurisdiction by trying to regulate the “nearly limitless swath of human activity” that produces climate-changing pollution.
Putting a price on carbon, Ottawa asserts, is widely recognized as an “effective and essential measure” to encourage behavioural changes needed to reduce global-warming emissions. The money raised from what it characterizes as a legitimate fee will flow back to the jurisdiction where it was collected, Ottawa says.
David Estrin, a veteran environmental law specialist at Osgoode Hall Law School, said Ford is using judges as a “political gambit.” The federal law, he said, applies in Ontario only because Ford scrapped the provincial carbon strategy that was in place under the previous government, launched the court challenge, and now seeks to impose what amounts to his own levy on big polluters.
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