The Manitoba government will go to court over Ottawa’s imposition of a carbon tax.
Premier Brian Pallister announced Wednesday his government will launch a legal challenge against the federal government, which followed through on imposing its new levy on Manitoba, along with three other provinces, Monday.
“We’re going to court, sadly, to challenge the Ottawa carbon tax because Ottawa cannot impose a carbon tax on a province that has a credible greenhouse gas reduction plan of its own,” he told reporters Wednesday.
Pallister had refused for months to commit to a court challenge after surprisingly withdrawing Manitoba’s own carbon tax scheme last October.
The federal government’s carbon tax came into effect April 1 for four provinces — Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick — that didn’t meet Ottawa’s demand to introduce their own carbon pricing systems.
The carbon tax is now charged on 21 different fuel inputs in those provinces, including gasoline, at a rate of $20 per tonne of carbon emissions. That will gradually rise to $50 per tonne by 2022.
Pallister said Wednesday his government has a strong legal case to make against the federal tax, since it had originally proposed its own tax. Manitoba backed away from that plan when the federal Liberal government declared it didn’t go far enough.
The made-in-Manitoba plan proposed a flat carbon price of $25 per tonne.
Pallister said Manitoba’s legal argument is more convincing now that the federal backstop is in place.
The premier said he will withdraw his court challenge if the joint Ontario-Saskatchewan court challenge succeeds, or if the Trudeau government is defeated in the next federal election.
If Ottawa’s plan is rejected, Pallister wouldn’t say whether he would implement the $25 a tonne carbon tax his government had originally proposed.