On sound rejections

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal's decision rejecting the Moe government's attacks on federal carbon pricing is worth a read in no small part for the general acceptance of a climate crisis by all parties when they were forced to rely on evidence rather than spin. But let's focus on how the majority judgment found the arguments asserted to challenge the federal backstop to be flawed from that starting point:

[51] Saskatchewan advances two main lines of argument in seeking to have the Act found unconstitutional. The first is that the principle of federalism prevents Parliament from enacting a statute applicable in only some provinces because of how those provinces have chosen to exercise their legislative authority. Saskatchewan’s second argument is that the Act imposes a tax and, because it allows the Governor in Council to decide where it applies, the Act offends the requirement in s. 53 of the Constitution Act, 1867 that bills imposing taxes must originate in the House of Commons. Saskatchewan goes on to deny that, as contended by Canada, the Act can be sustained under Parliament’s authority under the national concern branch of POGG.
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[68] Saskatchewan has referred to no judicial authority which in any way directly supports the idea that the principle of federalism can or should independently render unconstitutional an otherwise valid law. Its argument on this front cannot succeed.
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[111] In the end, Saskatchewan’s argument about the application of s. 53 of the Constitution Act, 1867 cannot succeed. The charges in issue here are not taxes in the constitutional sense of that term. However, if the charges are characterized as taxes, they do not violate s. 53.

And more fundamentally, on the need for climate policy to be subject to federal oversight rather than the whims of provinces acting in bad faith:

[156] All of this said, a good deal of the real significance of individual provincial failures to price GHG emissions to a minimum level plays out on a different plane. Climate change is a global problem and, accordingly, it calls for a global response. Such a response can only be effectively developed internationally by way of state-to-state negotiation and agreement. This, of course, is the story of the Framework Convention, the Kyoto Protocol, the Copenhagen Accord, and the Paris Agreement. In participating in these international processes, Canada is expected to make national commitments with respect to GHG reduction or mitigation targets. Those commitments are self-evidently difficult for Canada, as a country, to meet if not all provincial jurisdictions are prepared to implement GHG emissions pricing regimes – regimes that, on the basis of the record before the Court, are an essential aspect of successful GHG mitigation plans. This is not to suggest Parliament must somehow enjoy a comprehensive treaty implementation power in relation to the GHG issue. But, it is to say that the international nature of the climate change problem necessarily colours and informs an assessment of the effects of a provincial failure to deal with GHG pricing.

[157] It is true that the provinces, acting individually but cooperatively, could agree on a minimum national price for GHG emissions and thereby accomplish the same goal as the one sought by the Act. But this is not the point here. The point is that provinces could always withdraw from such arrangements and there is, accordingly, no assurance that coordinated provincial action would lead to a sustained approach to minimum GHG pricing.

Needless to say, though, no matter how soundly the Sask Party's political and legal positions have been rejected, it's always good news for Brad WallScott Moe.

Belabouring the obvious

Speaking of this fall's Saskatchewan election, let's note a remarkable feat of punditry by Murray Mandryk in his latest paean to the Sask Party. Of course it's always the goal of any prognosticator to identify what's inevitably around the corner so as to be able to take credit for predicting it. But Mandryk goes a step further in tying the content which will obviously form part of the NDP's platform into his overarching Always Bad News For Dwain Lingenfelter theme:

It's a task made easier by the utter failure of the Lingenfelter-led NDP to tell us what it is about. For example, if potash mine-expansion credits was such a bad idea, why did its own government implement them? And what would it do with the added revenue?

Failing to define what you stand for in politics simply allows your opponent to do so.

Let's leave aside for the moment the entirely tangential point about the difference in the state of the potash industry and the price of the resource when the current rates were set - which the NDP has indeed pointed to every time they've faced exactly the question he claims has never been answered.

Mandryk presumably knows that the NDP has spent plenty of time discussing its policy and values over the past year. And I highly doubt he's under any illusion that the NDP would forget to highlight its already-documented ideas as to what to do with added resource revenue during the course of the campaign.

Which means that his issue as to the NDP's willingness to define itself seems to be purely a matter of format and timing.

At worst, the NDP has thus far chosen to challenge the Sask Party's general assertion that the province can't even discuss whether resource gains might be shared with the population at large and point to areas demanding improvement, rather than setting out in detail what it will do instead. And there's certainly a strategic debate to be had as to whether that's the ideal strategy.

But it takes far more than a flippant dismissal to determine conclusively that the NDP should have publicized a platform at the earliest opportunity and made the debate one about details long before the election campaign starts. And that's doubly so given the alternative of letting Saskatchewan's citizens imagine and discuss for themselves some of the opportunities which might be available under a fairer royalty system, then incorporating the strongest ideas into its platform to be released for the campaign. Which, needless to say, is a possibility omitted entirely from Mandryk's discussion.

Fortunately, the NDP's position isn't anywhere near as dire as Mandryk's argument by omission would seem to suggest.

Indeed, even the Sask Party's own definition of the debate feeds fairly nicely into a direct clash between Wall's business focus, and the NDP's desire to make sure a fair share of Saskatchewan's resource wealth finds its way to both the province's current citizens and future generations. And since there doesn't seem to be much doubt that the NDP will provide the only viable alternative to the Sask Party on that front, there's still every opportunity to sway voters with that contest of ideas and values this fall.

Tuesday Morning Links

This and that for your Tuesday reading.

- With health care once again receiving plenty of attention on the U.S. political scene thanks to the Republicans' plan to dismantle publicly-funded Medicare, the differences between Canada and the U.S. are once again serving as a major point of discussion. And Aaron Carroll has posted a neat defence of Canada's universal system from the standpoint of patients and health practictioners alike.

- Megan Leslie highlights the Cons' continued failure to do anything meaningful on the climate change front - which looks all the more glaring when even oilsands operators are crying out for a clear and predictable system rather than another half a decade of delays and uncertainty.

- For all the talk about opposition parties' votes now being irrelevant in Parliament, it's noteworthy that the Bloc is planning to vote for the Cons' budget - even after the party had declared earlier this year that the HST money for Quebec which reflects the main change from the budget rejected in March wouldn't necessarily be enough to earn its support.

That would figure to mean the Bloc sees so little prospect of achieving much in the years to come that it has no choice but to paint the HST money as its main accomplishment for the next little while. Which may be an entirely reasonable conclusion - but seems to suggest that a Bloc resurgence is a long ways away.

- Shorter Murray Mandryk, serving up as embarrassing a sop to Brad Wall as one could imagine this side of John Gormley:

(insert Saskatchewan Party advertisement here)

- Finally, Rob Rainer nicely counters the perennial anti-tax spin from the Fraser Institute (which the Cons are working feverishly to promote) with a suggested Tax Benefits Day:

(H)appy Tax Benefits Day 2011! A day to remind ourselves that, far from being “bad” – as even Prime Minister Harper is on record as believing – taxes and our willingness to pay them make possible our democratic institutions and the many public goods and services that Canadians value.
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(O)f all the recommendations of McQuaig and Brooks, the most important may be to “strive to bring about a change in social attitudes toward taxation and its essential role in a democracy.” Hence the inauguration of Tax Benefits Day – to fall on the day immediately after the Fraser Institute’s Tax Freedom Day, to counter the misguided view that taxes are bad.

By way of comparison

Shorter Murray Mandryk:

Brad Wall's decision to allocate medical research funding at a political level makes him a policy innovator like Tommy Douglas. And this stick-figure drawing makes me a Renaissance man like Leonardo Da Vinci.

Memo to Murray Mandryk

"It's always good news for Brad Wall!" is a form of mockery, not a challenge. I trust this clears up your mistaken impression.

It's always good news for Brad Wall

Shorter Murray Mandryk:

The outcome of Saskatchewan's spring session in the Legislature was so lopsided in the NDP's favour that even I can't declare it a draw. But by sheer coincidence, I've just now decided that nobody likes a winner.

The reviews are in

Of course Murray Mandryk is required to close his latest with a refrain of "it's always good news for Brad Wall". But at least this part of his take on the current state of Saskatchewan politics is more than worth pointing out:

Consider the litany of mistakes, (the aforementioned potash projections being the biggest); bad choices, (closing SCN, cutting mosquito and Dutch elm disease control); partisan choices, (its determination to push through an unamended Bill 80); misrepresentations, (Health Minister Don McMorris's debacle with the privacy commissioner, Environment Minister Nancy Heppner's changes to the Wildlife Habitat Protection Act regulation), and; just plain dumb choices (Corrections Minister Yogi Huyghebaert's comment that he was sending the police after Opposition House leader Kevin Yates for alerting the public to an escaped sexual predator).

This is a government that even some Sask. Party insiders admit has somewhat lost its way -- and is now coming across as too arrogant and badly in need of some serious reflection. One even gets the impression that Wall himself is coming to the realization that he and his government are off their game.
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There's little doubt Lingenfelter and the NDP successfully distracted Wall on several days this session. (On no day was that more apparent than the day the premier blew a gasket when the NDP caucus chief of staff accidentally telephoned Wall's home number while searching for the remnants of Wall's former business Last Stand Adventure Company.) Equally unhelpful to Wall are the enablers he surrounds himself with whose job, it seems, appears to be to work the Sask. Party premier into a frenzy over the slightest criticism aimed at either Wall or his ministers.

This, too, is usually a sign of a government heading into a nosedive -- especially with all the other performance indicators weighing them down.

On high-priced credit

Shorter Murray Mandryk:

Sure, Rob Norris' stay in cabinet has generally been a slow motion train wreck. But it's theoretically possible that one letter he wrote could be linked to desirable action if another level of government which has ignored similar requests before decides to change its tune. And under CanWest policy, that entitles any Sask Party minister to a column singing his praises.

Oh dear

Apparently the Wall government's hack-and-slash budget is based on the modest assumption that Saskatchewan will be home to "more than 20 per cent of the world supply of natural resources". No word yet what proportion of that estimate consists of projected exports of magic beans and unicorn meat.

Easily distracted

Shorter Murray Mandryk:

It's obviously unfair to criticize Dwain Lingenfelter for the structure of a pension plan whose terms are beyond his control, and indeed in the hands of the very government which is bashing him for it. But that doesn't mean I won't do just that.

Edit: added label.

Flush? Or flushing?

James Wood reports that in last year's by-elections, the Sask Party and its candidates roughly doubled the NDP's spending while failing to cut meaningfully into the NDP's share of the vote. Which, by journalistic convention, is of course good news for Brad Wall.