The Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold the federal carbon tax dealt a second blow to provinces challenging the scheme after a Saskatchewan court made the same ruling in May. However, split decisions in both cases have given the provinces reason to stay the course on the legal challenge.
Last week, Ontario’s Court of Appeal ruled in a 4–1 decision that the federal carbon tax pricing scheme was constitutional. A month before that, Saskatchewan’s top court also made a 3–2 split ruling to ultimately uphold Ottawa’s scheme. Notably, however, the dissenting opinions offered in the two cases were based on different arguments.
