Feds Announce Proposed Carbon Pricing System As Part Of Pan-Canadian Clean Growth Plan

On January 15, 2018, the Minister of Environment and Climate Change and the Minister of Finance released for public comment the draft Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act (the "Proposed Act"), setting out the mechanics to be used to backstop the federal government's pan-Canadian approach to carbon pricing, originally announced in October 2016.¹   

The Proposed Act sets out the federal backstop regime for carbon pricing which will apply in provinces that have not implemented, by January 1, 2019, a carbon pricing system that the federal government has determined complies with its carbon pricing requirements. The federal backstop regime requires a minimum $20/tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent ("tCO2e") carbon price by January 1, 2019, increased by $10 increments each following year to 2022 (the "Federal Carbon Pricing Standard").  Alberta, British Columbia, Ontario and Québec already have compliant carbon pricing systems in place and are therefore unlikely to be