Make Ontario anti-tax again
The next leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservatives needs to take a page from Saskatchewan’s playbook, and be a national leader against carbon taxes. Striking down the Kathleen Wynne capand- trade carbon tax is an obvious start. Cap-and-trade is overly bureaucratic, sends billions of dollars out of the province, to Quebec and California, and lacks transparency as it doesn’t appear on Ontario’s rising energy bills.
But Ontario families and businesses who pay for capand-trade deserve more than just its repeal. They deserve a commitment that the next premier will fight a deficitladen federal government that wants to impose a carbon tax on them.
The Trudeau carbon tax as currently designed would actually cost more than the current problematic capand- trade tax. Experts predict that by 2022, cap- andtrade will cost households $ 300 per year, while a higher federal carbon tax will cost households $ 707 per year. For households with children, that cost rises to around $900 per year.
When the PCs’ former leader Patrick Brown announced that he would support a so- called “revenueneutral” carbon tax, it was without any consultation with grassroots party members. Instead, it was a plan concoc t ed by backroom players who were somehow convinced that running on a pro- tax platform would make the PC party more electable.
Yet, the Brown carbon t ax plan was unpopular with the PC base, and a poll last year found that voters were 58- per- cent less likely to support a candidate who supports a Brown- style direct carbon tax. This distaste was especially pronounced among PC and undecided voters. Hardly a winning strategy.
Continuing to promote the Brown fallacy of “revenue neutrality” will have devastating consequences for the PCs, and for Ontario. By 2022, a federal carbon tax will cost Ontario $5.1 billion per year, and there is no guarantee the money will be returned to the taxpayers who paid it.
The Trudeau government’s current carbon- tax plan does not require that money collected be given directly back to the provincial governments that do not have their own carbon tax. Instead, the federal government can provide rebates to prescribed individuals and corporations directly. This means an Ontario PC government may not have access to the federal carbon tax revenue if it repeals cap-andtrade and allows the federally imposed tax.
The old Brown election platform could not afford this. It was counting on the federal government imposing a carbon tax, and then providing those new billions in taxpayer money to the PCs to spend on their campaign promises. If the federal government spends that revenue, the PCs wouldn’t be able to pursue Brown’s promises, and they will have rolled over on the carbon tax for nothing.
With Brown gone, there is a chance for the PC party t o dump t he carbon- t ax albatross and dramatically reduce its expensive campaign promises. This is entirely permitted within the leadership rules set out by the PC executive on February 1st. The rules require l eadership candidates to support the aims, principles and objects of the PC party and the policy resolutions adopted at the recent policy convention. But the Brown carbon tax was never put to a vote by party membership at the fall policy convention, largely because the membership would never have supported it. Instead, a resolution was adopted committing the party to unwinding the cap- and- trade carbon tax and committed that all revenue from any federally imposed carbon tax would be returned to taxpayers. Based on the federal legisl ation, this door may be closed.
All leadership candidates are therefore free to — and must — campaign on a platform of fighting a federally imposed carbon tax, the way Saskatchewan’s outgoing premier Brad Wall did and the way new his successor Scott Moe is now doing. Ontario should be a leader in our confederation in making energy more affordable, not a lemming running towards the same carbon- tax cliff as our prime minister.