Canada’s North fights carbon tax

GARY PARK

For Petroleum News

The premiers of Canada’s three northern territories will continue waging a campaign to prevent the imposition of a carbon tax on their economically fragile region.

In their annual forum on April 29 in Old Crow, Yukon, they restated their concerns about the outcome of negotiations by the federal, provincial and territorial governments to reach an agreement this fall on a carbon-pricing mechanism.

So far only Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has hinted a national levy could be C$30 per metric ton of greenhouse gas emissions - a proposal that has encountered strong resistance from some provinces, notably Saskatchewan.

But there has been no mention of specific exemptions for the territories.

“A carbon tax would have a negative impact on the quality of life in the North,” the three northern governments said in a joint release.

“Canada’s climate goals must be conducted in a way that does not significantly impact northern costs of living, undermine food security or threaten emerging economies.”

Bob McLeod, of the Northwest Territories, called for alternative methods of reducing GHGs, saying the NWT has lowered emissions by 30 percent in the last 11 years without a carbon tax.

“We’re the three territories most affected by climate change,” he told reporters. “We see it every day. We say there’s different ways.

“We’re already a very expensive place to live, the cost of energy is very high and we need the provinces to recognize that,” he said.

Nunavut Premier Peter Taptuna said his territory’s goods and services are shipped in from Ontario, Quebec and other southern jurisdictions, which means the people if Nunavut are already paying a carbon tax.

“We don’t want to put our communities into a situation where it becomes a real issue to keep our businesses,” he said.

Although the territories left a meeting of national leaders in March having committed to nothing and ruled nothing out on carbon pricing, Yukon Premier Darrell Pasloski insisted at the time “we won’t be putting a carbon tax into place in the Yukon.”

He said his territory is already well advanced in building retrofits, biomass energy generation, hydro expansion and a range of other carbon reduction efforts.

However, Nunavut is almost completely reliant on diesel to fire its electricity plants.

The premiers emerged from their Old Crow meeting issuing a call for more infrastructure funding from the Canadian government.

McLeod said that funding should be distributed on the same base amount for territories and provinces, with additional funding based on population, rather than using population as sole determinant for allocating money.

“If we build strategic infrastructure it will attract investment,” he said. “Our biggest concern, though, is that we’re a very small population.”

Pasloski said that because the natural resources of the territories are owned by the national government attracting investment through infrastructure represents a “great opportunity for Canada, as a net beneficiary in a resource industry in the North.”