PROVINCES' CARBON TAX WAR WITH OTTAWA

    FP: Together, the provinces representing half the Canadian population now are or soon might be arming for a carbon-tax war with Ottawa. That doesn’t even count Manitoba, which is still refusing to align its own less-burdensome carbon-tax plan with Ottawa’s pricing scheme. Or New Brunswick, whose plan is also at odds with federal requirements. Or Nova Scotia, whose cap-and-trade scheme doesn’t come close to meeting McKenna’s stipulations. (Newfoundland and P.E.I. haven’t revealed their plans yet.)
     So how many provinces exactly do Trudeau and McKenna think they can successfully fight? And if they thought trying to force wildly unpopular small-business taxes down peoples’ throats was a fiasco, wait till they see how ugly things get trying to force a carbon tax on hostile Canadians who loathe it even more than their premiers, who at least are tempted by the potential cash grab.
     Yet McKenna sounded positively blithe this week about the ease with which she plans to deploy her “backstop” weapon, in responding to a letter from Saskatchewan’s Environment Minister Dustin Duncan, who said the province could not accept her carbon tax. McKenna’s response: If Duncan’s government didn’t start taxing carbon at the minimum price she requires, “we would have no choice but to ensure that a price on pollution applies …. We would do so by applying the federal carbon pricing system in Saskatchewan.” It sounds so simple. Except the closer you examine her position, the weaker it seems.