Premier Brad Wall calls federal environment infrastructure plan ‘extortion’

Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna unveiled details Thursday of the Trudeau government’s $2 billion Low Carbon Economy Fund, which will be rolled out over the next five years.

However, Saskatchewan and Manitoba stand to be left out. Much of the money will only be made available to provinces and territories that have signed onto the national carbon agreement, which includes the proposed carbon tax.

Premier Brad Wall called this “nothing short of extortion by the federal government” in a Facebook post.

Both Manitoba and Saskatchewan now have until December to sign onto the agreement if they want to get in on the potential infrastructure funding. Saskatchewan Environment Minister Scott Moe said the provincial government is still staunchly opposed to pricing carbon.

“This is not traditionally how the federal government has operated in years past with respect to withholding infrastructure dollars to certain jurisdictions that may or may not agree with certain parts of federal policy,” Moe said.

READ MORE: Ottawa to unveil details of $2B carbon fund to most, not all, provinces

The $2 billion comes from two funds. First is a $600 million Low Carbon Economy Challenge for industry and public sector projects. It will be launched in the fall and awarded on a merit-based project-by-project approach.

The second is a $1.4-billion Low Carbon Economy Leadership Fund per capita fund for provinces and territories that have signed on to the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change. Eligible provinces receive $30 million, plus a per-capita share of $1 billion.

McKenna said “it’s only fair” that the provinces that stepped up to help Canada meet its international commitments to reduce emissions get to share in the fund.

“We’re certainly working very hard with Saskatchewan and Manitoba and are very hopeful that they’ll sign up to the pan-Canadian plan on climate change,” McKenna said.

Moe said despite this, Saskatchewan will still be applying for infrastructure dollars from these funds.

Amongst all of this, the Government of Saskatchewan continues to look into the possibility of the federal government over the looming possibility of an imposed carbon tax.

“In the months ahead we’ll be communicating more on where we sit with our initiatives of not having a carbon tax here in the province of Saskatchewan,” Moe said.

Moe added Saskatchewan is doing a lot to mitigate carbon emissions, including the use of the Carbon Capture and Sequestration facility at Boundary Dam Three near Estevan, a move to have 50 per cent of power generated by green technology by 2030 and working with industry to limit emissions.

With files from The Canadian Press