Whether you’ve donated, shared our work with your friends, or sent us an encouraging message, supporters like you have demonstrated time and time again that you’ve got our back — thank you.
We remain confident that the Supreme Court of Canada will uphold the federal government’s legal authority to implement national measures to combat the climate emergency.
In advance of our upcoming court appearance, we want to make sure you’re up to speed on why this Supreme Court hearing is so important and what needs to happen next in the climate emergency fight.
Premiers take aim at the climate emergency
In the last year, we’ve gone toe-to-toe with premiers who’ve made a point to politicize the climate emergency.
From taking on Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who campaigned on a promise to gut the province’s cap and trade program and systematically dismantle any climate plan in the works, to challenging Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s repeated attempts to undercut laws put in place to safeguard the climate, we’ve had our work cut out for us.
Efforts by anti-environment governments to obstruct climate action hit boiling point when Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta all launched separate constitutional challenges of the federal government’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act — a federal backstop aimed at ensuring that every province and territory in Canada does its part to reduce emissions. Where provinces fail to implement a carbon price of their own, the Act sets a minimum price for the provinces.
Courts in Saskatchewan and Ontario have since upheld the constitutionality of the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act and confirmed the federal government has the power to step in when the province fails to effectively tackle climate change.
Saskatchewan’s court agreed that, “climate change is doubtless an emergency in the sense that it presents a genuine threat to Canada.” This is a judicial first.
Meanwhile Ontario’s court went even further and found that the risk of non-participation by one or more province permits the federal government to adopt minimum national standards to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
While both provinces have appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, the lower court decisions point to an emerging legal consensus that the climate emergency requires a collective approach. Given that one or more provinces can too easily undermine national efforts to tackle climate change, the federal government must be permitted to enforce minimum national standards to reduce GHG emissions.