Today has been Brad Wall's last day as MLA for Swift Current. Scott Moe will replace him officially as premier this week, and continue the fight against a carbon tax.

Everett Hindley, who, until now, has been Wall's executive assistant, is running as the Saskatchewan Party candidate for an upcoming byelection in Swift Current.

"I think it's always important to stand up for our province's interests and for the people of Saskatchewan," said Hindley. "I think that's been the consistent message from our government, and that's something that the Premier Elect Moe has talked about, and something Premier Wall had taken as a position over the years. Whether it was this particular issue of the carbon tax, or any number of issues. We work for the people of Swift Current and the people of the province."

The Saskatchewan government has a carbon-capture program, but its effectiveness hasn't been lauded as great by SaskPower.

But the Saskatchewan Party doesn't have much company in fighting a carbon tax - whether that be across party lines in Saskatchewan or across provincial boundaries.

In Manitoba, Progressive Conservative Premier Brian Pallister was hesitant to draw up a tax on carbon. But then came lawyer Bryan Schwartz - an expert on constitutional law - and his report saying that the federal government does have the constitutional authority to create a carbon tax. Schwartz's report explained the wiggle room the provinces have is implementing a lower tax rate if they can prove their carbon tax is just as effective. After receiving the report, Pallister decided to draw up a carbon tax.

Saskatchewan is the only province without some kind of carbon tax or cap-and-trade plan.

Both the opposition NDP and Liberals have announced candidates to run for Wall's soon-to-be-former seat as MLA, and both candidates think it's time for the Saskatchewan Party to come up with a different carbon plan.

"If we get a plan that comes from Ottawa - well they don't know what life's like here well enough. We're the ones who know. We're the ones who know how to protect our industries, so it's our plan that needs to come into place to make sure that those jobs and those families that rely on those jobs are protected," said NDP candidate Stefan Rumpel, who is of the mindset that the province would only be wasting money in a constitutional battle they'd be destined to lose.

"I'm frustrated because our current government, which has already wasted $1.5 billion on a carbon-capture project - a project that SaskPower has said we shouldn't keep pursuing because it isn't cost effective, and it isn't meeting emission targets, is now probably going to use more of our tax dollars to sue the federal government. So in a way, we've already paid a carbon tax," Rumpel added.

"Looking at the statistics, it's most likely not going to be successful," said Liberal candidate Aidan Roy, whose party proposes getting rid of personal income tax to make way for the carbon tax. "So we have to prepare with all we can to implement a carbon tax and to, more than that, protect our citizens and make life more affordable for them to offset the carbon tax."

The Green Party plans on running a candidate in the Swift Current byelection, while the Progressive Conservatives haven't committed.