Roundup: Federal Government 2, Provinces 0

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It was not a surprise that the Ontario Court of Appeal told Doug Ford to go pound sand with regard to its objections to the federal carbon price, which is exactly what they did in a 4-1 decision, affirming the Saskatchewan decision that the price is not a tax but a regulatory charge, and that it’s not unconstitutional. Ford, predictably, vowed to take this to the Supreme Court of Canada, and given that they agreed to hear the Saskatchewan case, it’s likely these two will be heard together, where you can pretty much bet that the majority of the judges there will tell Moe, Ford, and the likes, to similarly go pound sand. As for the dissenting judge on the Ontario panel, well, he has a pretty interesting history of his legal philosophy, and was unusually appointed directly to the Court of Appeal from his being a law professor.

Meanwhile, here’s some analysis, with threads by Andrew Leach, plus Lindsay Tedds on the whole tax/regulatory charge difference.

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1144686800348340226

https://twitter.com/EmmMacfarlane/status/1144687790367674368

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/1144706969493749761

https://twitter.com/cmathen/status/1144708330037874692

Meanwhile, the BC government’s lawyers were in Alberta court on Friday to argue for an injunction against the province’s blatantly unconstitutional “turn off the taps” legislation now that it’s been proclaimed, likening it to a loaded gun that they don’t want to go off accidentally. The hitch, of course, is the question of whether BC has standing to go to Alberta court over the case, so we’ll see what the judge decides there.

Good reads:

  • At the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Justin Trudeau did have a brief meeting with the Chinese president, while also rallying other Western allies to our cause.
  • The outgoing Chinese ambassador to Canada, meanwhile, is changing his tune and saying the trade spat is temporary and won’t affect our longstanding friendship.
  • Here’s a look at how a trade war with China would affect the Canadian economy.
  • The government unveiled their final regulations for major emitters, and that loosened some of the requirements for fertilizer and steel producers.
  • Surprising nobody, Canada continues to sell LAVs to Saudi Arabia (because jobs).
  • One BC First Nation now opposes the Trans Mountain expansion until they can get assurances that it won’t affect one of their ancient villages.
  • In reassuring news, Boeing was found to have falsified certification of a 787 jet sold to Air Canada that had a fuel leak, and now they say it was an isolated incident.
  • The RCMP are looking into whether the coded anti-Semitic content in a “Canadian Nationalist Party” video qualifies as hate speech.
  • The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in a case that upholds rape shield laws.
  • Liberal MP Randy Boissonnault says the government is spending the summer looking at how to criminalize “conversion therapy.”
  • An NDP candidate from the Halifax area has been ousted for tweets comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.
  • Kevin Carmichael parses the latest Bank of Canada optimism with the news that the US Federal Reserve wants to cut rates, and where Canada may be caught.
  • Matt Gurney laments the “meme-ification” of Canadian politics as election season heats up.
  • Susan Delacourt offers some summer reading suggestions for those preparing for the election (but seems to be missing a book…)
  • Martin Patriquin evaluates the Liberals’ attempts to have their cake and eat it too with both their carbon price and the Trans Mountain pipeline.
  • Andrew Coyne asserts, quite correctly, that all the talk of striking a “deal with China to end the current trade spat is harming the notion of being a rule-of-law country.
  • Peter Shawn Taylor looks to the history of energy transitions to debunk some of the talk about the ability to rapidly decarbonize our economy.
  • My weekend column questions the wisdom of trying to make Trudeau’s “great experiment” of a “reformed” Senate an election issue.

Odds and ends:

A recent court case is treating drunk canoeing the same as drunk driving.

Programming Note: Taking the rest of the long weekend off. See you Wednesday morning. Happy Dominion Day/Canada Day!

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