A provincial environment minister who walked out of talks with his federal counterpart on Monday says he was blindsided by the timing of Ottawa’s announcement forcing provinces to put a price on carbon. “I didn’t understand – and I couldn’t understand – what are the implications for what I just heard on our own provincial economy,” Perry Trimper, Minister of Environment and Climate Change for Newfoundland and Labrador, told BNN in an interview Wednesday.

On Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled the federal government’s plan to establish a floor price on carbon pollution nationwide of $50 per tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2018. Provincial governments will have to meet or exceed that price, by imposing either a carbon tax or implementing a cap-and-trade system. If a province fails to establish a pricing on carbon, Trudeau said the federal government would impose one.

Trimper – along with environment ministers from Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan – walked out of negotiations with federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna on Monday. Trimper says he needed to stop the negotiations to assess the impact of Trudeau’s announcement on his province’s economy. “We’ve got a very unique oil industry,” he said, “[We] really want to take a pause and figure out what this means for that sector in particular - It’s so important for us.”

A minimum carbon price would have a big impact on Newfoundland, according to Trimper. Offshore oil drilling accounts for a large – but falling – portion of provincial revenue. “We do watch the price of oil each day, we also watch the value of the Canadian dollar because those two factors play well into how we are going to get out of this,” he said. “Oil is not going to be our long-term salvation.”

Trimper added he was surprised by Trudeau’s announcement since the provinces and Ottawa had been making good progress toward a national agreement on carbon. Newfoundland agrees that Canada needs to have a price on carbon, but Ottawa needs to work with the provinces to allow them to develop their own solutions, he argued.

“Each province and territory needs to be allowed to continue on a path they have been on. Until Trudeau’s administration took over there was no leadership on this issue.”