Stephen Harper is criticizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate-change policy for unfairly singling out “certain parts of the country,” as the Liberal government proceeds with a hard cap on oil-and-gas emissions that are expected to particularly affect provinces such as Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Harper’s criticism of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s climate-change policy comes as the Liberal government proceeds with a hard cap on oil-and-gas emissions
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Mr. Harper said if he were in charge of mitigating climate change in Canada in 2021, he would not be taking measures to “shut down” an industry in a region that didn’t generate political returns for him.
The former Conservative Leader used a hypothetical analogy to make his point, speaking about the aerospace industry in Montreal, where the Conservatives performed relatively poorly during elections when he headed the party.
“If I were today handling the climate-change issue, I wouldn’t be saying to myself, ‘You know, I have had three national elections, three governments [and] never won a seat in Montreal,’ ” he told the Canada West Foundation (CWF) event.
“ ‘And one of the biggest growth of global emissions is the aerospace industry,’ ” he continued. “ ‘Therefore, I am going to shut down Montreal’s aerospace industry because I don’t need to care about it because I don’t have any political interests there.’ ”
Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal Party, which won 35 seats in Quebec in the September, 2021, federal election, only secured two in Alberta and was shut out of Saskatchewan.
Mr. Harper said that in his opinion, the federal government under his tenure treated all regions fairly “whether they voted for us or not.”
He said that is not happening today under Ottawa’s climate-change policy.
“Obviously, the way some things are being handled today – where certain parts of the country are singled out in ways that others aren’t – I think is really inexcusable.”
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney later called it “peculiar” that Mr. Trudeau hadn’t discussed the issue with the province before the Prime Minister spoke at COP26. “We need to be partners in this,” Mr. Kenney said.
Separately, Mr. Harper also criticized judicial activism in Canada as a driver of litigation and uncertainty, citing the Supreme Court’s recent decision that Ottawa has the authority to impose a minimum price on greenhouse-gas emissions across the country.
“I think the increasingly wide discretion used by courts in rendering judgments – whether it’s on the Charter, division of powers, or anything else, simply provides more uncertainty over the long term and more invitation to future litigation.”
He said he thought the Supreme Court’s March, 2021, majority decision on the carbon tax reference “was devoid of solid legal reasoning,” arguing that “if you can get the Constitution so radically interpreted differently than what it actually says on an issue like that, then you are going to invite all kinds of other challenges.”
