Judges put Ottawa on hot seat at carbon pricing hearing

By Fatima Syed and Alastair Sharp, National Observer, April 16, 2019

It was the Trudeau government's turn to be on the hot seat on Tuesday as justices from the Ontario Court of Appeal grilled a Crown attorney about whether it was making the country's most populous province pay more than their counterparts to fight climate change.

In some heated exchanges, the justices pressed Sharlene Telles-Langdon to "fill in the blanks."

Seven minutes into the proceedings, Chief Justice George Strathy asked Telles-Langdon to identify the sources of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions, and whether they make up 90 per cent of all air pollution.

"I don't know," she responded, clearly taken aback by the information request.

"Fill in the blanks" continued to be the staple of the tough inquiries posed by the five-justice panel to the counsel for the attorney general of Canada, as they sought clarity on what kind of constitutional limit Ottawa was proposing to put on the powers it is seeking to exert by imposing a national carbon price to meet its international greenhouse gas reduction targets.

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/04/16/news/judges-put-ottawa-hot-seat-carbon-pricing-hearing

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