Farmscape for July 19, 2018

Saskatchewan's Environment Minister is encouraging other provinces to intervene in support of Saskatchewan's challenge of Ottawa's authority to force the province's to impose a carbon tax.
A University of Regina analysis has found a federally imposed carbon tax could potentially reduce Saskatchewan's gross domestic product by almost 16 billion dollars by 2030, with little effect on emissions.
Saskatchewan Environment Minister Dustin Duncan says there are better alternatives.

Clip-Dustin Duncan-Environment Minister Saskatchewan:
First and foremost we don't believe the federal government has the jurisdiction to impose a  tax on the province of Saskatchewan.
We certainly agree that the federal government has taxing authority but not when it's only  implemented in one provincial jurisdiction so we have launched a court case to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal and we look forward to the court of appeal hearing our legal arguments on that.
The second point is that we have a made in Saskatchewan plan that doesn't require the federally imposed carbon tax to be imposed on the province of Saskatchewan.
We believe our plan is more in line with the nature of Saskatchewan's economy, how people earn a living in this province and how our economy functions and a plan that we think will actually achieve more when it comes to emissions reductions than the federally imposed carbon tax.
We certainly encourage other provincial governments, even if a provincial government is potting a carbon tax on their own citizens, we certainly encourage them to look at the case that we're going to put before the court of appeal and intervene on our behalf.
This is really an important court discussion that is going to take place.
It speaks to whether or not the federal government can take a national approach that would only be applied to one or a few provinces.
We think that it's in the interest of other provincial; governments because It could set a precedent for other decisions that may come from this federal government or future federal governments.

Duncan says Saskatchewan believes it has a better policy option and that this is provincial jurisdiction, not federal jurisdiction.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

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