Why is cap and trade only missing line?

There are few things more politically cynical than Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government hiding the added cost of cap and trade from Ontarians on their monthly natural gas bills.

Small wonder the Liberals don’t want Ontarians knowing the real costs.

Originally, they told us the added cost of cap and trade would average $5 a month per household. But when energy companies started charging the carbon price, they said it would average $6.70 per household per month, already 33 per cent higher than the government’s initial claim.

When Mississauga senior Muriel Chudiak went through the laborious process of figuring out the actual cost of cap and trade on her bill, as reported by the Antonella Artuso, it was twice the government estimate.

The Liberals’ defence for their secrecy is that the decision not to include the cost of cap and trade as a separate line item on natural gas bills was made by the Ontario Energy Board.

That’s absurd. Wynne has a majority government. If the Liberals wanted us to know what cap and trade is costing us on our natural gas bills, they could arrange it in an instant.

But they won’t because their strategy in introducing carbon pricing is to treat the public like mushrooms — keep us in the dark and cover us with manure.

By contrast, the Liberals make sure we know every month when they say they’re giving us a break on our electricity bills, even though what they’re really doing is robbing Peter to pay Paul and increasing public debt.

They included a separate line item for their 10 per cent Ontario Clean Energy Benefit credit on hydro bills, until that program was discontinued at the end of 2015.

Now, they include their eight per cent provincial rebate as a separate line item on electricity bills, introduced Jan. 1.

What’s going on is obvious. When it comes to the added costs of cap and trade on natural gas bills, the Liberals hide it, just as cap and trade hides the cost increase of carbon pricing on all goods and services, because it’s buried in hikes to retail prices.

But when they claim they’re giving us a break on our electricity bills, they shout it from the rooftops.

Talk about hypocrisy.