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Home / The Legislative Authority to Implement a Domestic Emissions Trading System

The Legislative Authority to Implement a Domestic Emissions Trading System

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RELEASED
1999

 

 Domestic Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading: Technical Paper Series

This paper is one of a series of papers that discuss possible mechanisms to address key issues that must be considered in the design of a variety of potential emissions trading systems for greenhouse gases. Specifically, this paper and the two appended papers deal with the division of legislative powers between the federal and provincial governments and the uncertainty created by this division when trying to determine what level of government has authority to implement an emissions trading system for greenhouse gases in Canada.

Canada’s Constitution sets out the rules by which the country is governed, but does not mention the environment and its management. Therefore, the regulation of environmental matters cannot be specifically determined to fall within the exclusive realm of either the federal or the provincial governments. Because environmental issues can touch various categories of legislative authority, the power to make laws in the area of emissions trading could be either federal or provincial.