The Manitoba government is seeking a legal opinion in regards to the federal government's proposed backstop and benchmarks for carbon pricing.

The federal government released a technical paper on the federal carbon pricing backstop on June 9 and requested comprehensive feedback from each province and territory by the end of June.

Premier Brian Pallister says Manitoba wants to come up with its own plan.

"The federal approach is to impose a $50 carbon tax and we feel that this would be extremely damaging to Manitobans and their families, and in particular in a province where we have many of our residents living in rural situations or in northern parts of the province, this imposes a hardship," commented Pallister. "It also imposes a hardship on our three most important economic sectors: agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation."

Pallister noted that Canada is a diverse country, adding what might work in one region, might not work in another.

"What's good for Waterloo, might not work in Winkler," he said. "What's good for Brantford, isn't going to work in Brandon. We have to respect this diversity in our country in terms of how we combat the issues that we're facing in terms of climate change."

Pallister added that the province accounts for less than three per cent of Canada’s total carbon emissions.

Manitoba sources 98 per cent of its power from clean, renewable hydroelectricity.