Energy minister ‘shocked’ at Sask. premier breaking carbon tax law | Power Play with Vassy Kapelos

Here to explain why is natural resources and energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson hi Minister Wilkinson good to have you back on the show thanks for making the time thanks for having me Minister why are you saying you’re not going to send any rebate back to Saskatchewan this

What they’ve decided to do is only a portion of what they pay a price on carbon for yeah what I’m saying is that that which relates to heating which is what they have now said that they will not be rebating um will not go back that will

Impact the overall size of the rebate it will go down which will penalize people in Saskatchewan because eight out of 10 families get more money back and it’s actually people of the lowest income that actually get much more money back than they actually pay if you look at BR

Doter at the University of Regina or Trevor Tom is from the Oro Calgary like the data tells you that they are making people who live on Modest incomes poorer no you’re right that certainly uh if they had lost if they do lose a portion of the rebate that that does

Disproportion fortunately affect low income people my question is just to be clear you’re not saying now that all of the rebate will go away for sasin because last week you said the government is actually going to stop sending rebates to Saskatchewan residents as of today so it’s not all of

The $4 to $1800 they’re losing just a portion yeah I think what I said was the rebate is a function of of the money that actually comes in that people pay in terms of the price on pollution and so the amount of money that will be coming in through the price on pollution

Will obviously be lower and therefore the rebates will go down which will disproportionately affect people who live on Modest incomes like if they are really concerned about affordability my goodness they’re making it a lot worse for the people who are most vulnerable it’s interesting though because and I

Understand the posture you’re taking on on that specific piece of it the opposition in the province which are new Democrats are actually support of uh wholly of what the government is doing the leader of the Saskatchewan NDP released a statement saying fun fundamentally this comes down to fairness for Saskatchewan families and

Remitting an unfair and unequal tax to the federal government isn’t right it’s not just conservatives who are opposing your government on this piece it’s actually new Democrats as well how do you respond to that well I would suggest that the the leader of of the new Democratic party

Miss Beck um just as I would suggest Premier Premier Mo actually have a look at the research and the data uh it’s pretty clear all they need to do is drive out to the univiversity of Virgina and talk to Brent doter I mean they are making poor people poorer and and it’s

Pretty shocking to me as somebody who used to run the the youth wi of the NDP in Catan that the NDP in SAS would be taking that kind of a position it is not thoughtful um and uh and it is not well informed with with the data but perhaps

It’s based on sentiment in the province and again I understand the math you’re not wrong not getting this portion of the rebate will disproportionately impact people in SAS ketron particularly who are lowincome but the Genesis of the opposition that they that that you face from a policy perspective from both the

The provincial conservatives and new Democrats is they fundamentally believe what you did on home heating oil is unfair to other parts of Canada including them well I would say first of all that’s wrong because it actually applies to all parts of Canada and home heating oil is very different from natural gas

It is three to five four times more expensive it creates enormous affordability issues and we stepped in to actually try to fix that including through uh through programs that are actually going to help to displace Heating oil um by utilizing heat pumps but but at the end of the day I mean

Asley you shouldn’t make bad public policy decisions because you think the politics are good I mean if that’s the way that that that both the saskat Democrats and and the government are are thinking about it I mean I I just think as somebody who who believes in good

Public policy that’s just not not an appropriate way to think about it but I think they’re not just against the politics of it they’re against the policy because they feel like your government made it political and I take your point about it applying to home heating oil across the board but the

Greatest portion of homes that use that are in Atlantic Canada 25% compared to very negligible negligible pardon me percentages in other parts of the country you add to that the Prime Minister was surrounded by Atlantic MPS when he made that announcement and then Minister goody Hutchings on one of my

Other program said that if other parts of the country wanted to talk about an exemption they should elect more liberal MPS what reaction did you expect from those other parts of the country well with due respect vashy there’s actually more uh home heating oil homes in Quebec than there are in

All of Atlantic Canada there are just all in Atlantic Canada so this is not just an Atlantic Canadian issue but but no but but on an aggregate basis there are more and I would say so their their answer is to make poor people poorer like I mean that just doesn’t

Make any sense at all I would also say look you can’t pick and choose which laws you’re going to abide by and which you can’t if you do that you’re going to have Anarchy the pro the premier of a province cannot say to people that he is

Going to Simply decide which laws he obeys and which ones he doesn’t how does he expect to to to have citizens of Saskatchewan um obey laws that he passes through the provincial legislature like this is unheard of it’s historic in the history of Canada and it is such such

Appallingly bad judgment and I say that as somebody who used to work for many years for a very distinguished premier of Saskatchewan I I grew up in that Province my family lives in that Province like people in saskat expect and and to be honest should be demanding more thoughtful responsible leaders

If it if it is that historic Minister will the government the federal government’s response be commensurate with that and by that I mean will you pursue legal res recourse I would say that at this stage we are looking to see exactly what the government of sukatan will do I am still

Hopeful that they will see the light they will see reason and they will make a decision to actually rebate the money um but at the end of the day if they decide that that’s not what they’re going to do and that’s certainly what they’ve said then the federal

Government’s going to have to figure out uh what the different options are but but what I would say is like it it can’t be the case that provinces just pick and choose which laws they abide by and which they don’t it can’t be the case that the federal government decides

Which laws it chooses to abide by and which it doesn’t we expect all of our citizens to abide by the laws and it’s a democratic process to replace governments at both provincial and federal levels if you disagree with them but it’s not up to to individual citizens and it’s not up to individual

Premier to decide that they’re simply not going to abide by a law that the suprem Court of Canada has recently upheld again though if if that is your feeling Minister why don’t you know for sure what kind of recourse you’re going to pursue and why did your government allow for the downloading of

Responsibility and jurisdiction over natural gas to go from the crown Corporation to the government so now you have to throw potentially a minister in jail versus somebody who worked for the crown Corporation was that political on your end as well I don’t think don’t think anybody’s talking about throwing people in jail um

What we are talking about is actually having a reasonable response we want to make sure it’s a measured and thoughtful response to illegal activity on the part of Premier Mo but but I would say that we are in the process of sorting out exactly how best to respond to something

That clearly is something that that the premier has even said you know he knows he’s breaking the law is it politically in your interest though to be able to hold them liable even not if you don’t throw anybody in jail vers is somebody with Sask energy like why allow for that

Downloading of responsibility didn’t it kind of open the gateway to allow Scott Moe to do what he did no it it didn’t it was something that the government of Saskatchewan asked us to do we did it in good faith it was allowed for um at the

End of the day uh I don’t think anybody expected a provincial Premier to act in a way that is essentially outside the law I to be honest I I was shocked that they would actually go through with this I I think for a province that is given

Us Tommy Douglas and Alan blakney and Ross Thatcher and Roy Romano I just I find it shocking that we’ve come to the point where where we have a premier that’s willing to actually behave in this way just shocking so you really didn’t think when they applied to download that responsibility to

Themselves versus have an executive at Sask energy take the fall that they were preparing to do something like this you didn’t have any indication that that would be the case I’ve always been of the view that you should actually believe that Premier and the vast majority of Canadian citizens

Strive to work within the law strive to act in accordance with the law I would never assume that a provincial Premier would deliberately thumb their nose at the law and I don’t think most Canadians would ever assume that either okay Minister I’m out of time I appreciate

Your time as always thank you so much all right thank you bashy

Federal Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson called the Sask. premier’s move to break carbon tax law one of ‘appalling bad judgment.’

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