UPDATE: 3:45 p.m.
Some last-minute megaphone diplomacy by B.C. Premier Christy Clark appears to have secured a deal on a pan-Canadian climate plan — but Saskatchewan remains outside the fold.
Moments after Clark emerged from a first minister's meeting with Justin Trudeau to publicly kneecap the prime minister's signature climate plan, word emerged of a compromise.
Trudeau had unilaterally imposed an escalating floor price on carbon dioxide emissions, starting at $10 in 2018 and topping out at $50 in 2022, when the policy would be reassessed.
Under the compromise deal, the carbon price would pause at B.C.'s existing $30 level in 2020, when an independent expert panel will look at how the plan is evolving.
Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has already touted a "historic agreement" that includes 10 provinces and territories and three indigenous groups.
B.C.'s addition made it 11, with Saskatchewan clearly offside and Manitoba's position not immediately clear.
UPDATE: 12:30 p.m.
Loud but predictable opposition to a federal carbon tax by Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall may be overshadowed by a bigger threat to a pan-Canadian climate deal from British Columbia and Premier Christy Clark.
Clark said issues of carbon price equivalency between direct carbon taxation — such as in B.C. — and Quebec and Ontario's cap-and-trade markets need to be resolved before she'll sign on to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's plan for an escalating tax.
"It might not be today," Clark said on her way into the meeting, speaking of the prospect of a climate deal coming together before day's end.
Trudeau assembled the provincial and territorial premiers in the capital Friday where the Liberal government hopes to finalize its crowning achievement for its first year in office — a federal-provincial policy road map to meeting Canada's international climate commitments.
"We should not waver," Trudeau said to open the meeting, flanked by U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden.
Biden, just weeks away from the end of the Obama administration and the ascendency of Donald Trump's Republicans, gave a rallying speech of sorts before departing the meeting.
"We're always stronger when we're working together," said Biden.
But the promised show of pan-Canadian unity on climate policy was showing strains as the meeting began. Wall flatly asserted he won't be signing any agreement that includes the Liberal carbon pricing plan.
The Saskatchewan premier said Ottawa has failed to provide an economic analysis of the biggest tax change in a generation.
"We're being asked to agree to a carbon tax that the federal government admits will cascade through the system for Canadians, and we're being asked to do it without a full assessment," he said in Ottawa.
"We're not signing."
And he made common cause with B.C.'s Clark, saying the federal plan will result in a competitive "imbalance" given emitters in central Canada, where cap-and-trade will mitigate emissions, face a lower carbon price than in western Canada.