Last September the federal government announced any provinces that fails to have a carbon pricing system in place by the end of 2018 will have one imposed.

Saskatchewan Pork Development Board Chair Florian Possberg says Saskatchewan pork producers oppose carbon pricing and he applauds the Saskatchewan government in fighting a carbon tax.

Florian Possberg-Saskatchewan Pork Development Board

Number one agriculture is a very complicated business so we do need energy to support our industry.

We live in a cold climate so we need to heat barns and we need to use trucks and various transportation modes to get our production to markets.

We can't see that putting a tax on energy, on carbon, how that can be anything other than a new cost to our business model.

That's a very strong reason why we oppose it.

As well it appears that carbon taxes really aren't very efficient in terms of reducing greenhouse gases.

If you're going to impose a tax or a levy on something you would hope it would have a positive impact but if it is just another case of creating a bureaucracy with costs involved and no foreseeable benefit we don't see any reason why that's positive for our industry.

Mr Possberg notes many carbon issues are not well defined and he envisions some bureaucrat somewhere deciding this activity or that activity is creating carbon without any science behind it and it can turn into something that's based on perception rather than on fact.