Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes an announcement that the government will double the carbon price rebate for rural Canadians beginning next April during a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday Oct. 26, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
TORONTO – First Nations leaders in Ontario are asking a court to review what they call Canada’s “discriminatory” carbon price system.
A group representing more than 130 First Nations in the province has filed an application for judicial review in Federal Court, saying the system places an unjust price on their communities without suitable cost relief.
The Chiefs of Ontario says the federal government failed to meaningfully engage with repeated attempts to find a solution and denied their request for an exemption only to then make a carveout targeting concerns in Atlantic Canada last month.
The application asks the court to order the government back to the table to negotiate a solution that upholds the carbon price’s purpose to “alleviate the climate crisis” without worsening the “human rights crisis” experienced by First Nations.
The group says northern and remote First Nations already face high fuel costs with limited ability to transition to low-carbon alternatives.
Although the carbon price is designed to be revenue-neutral in large part through an income-tax rebate, the application says many First Nations members don’t have ready access to that cost relief because they don’t use the federal income tax system.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 30, 2023.
