Crombie promises no provincial carbon tax

Ontario Liberal leader also announces new panel to develop party’s climate-change policies

Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie says there will be no provincial carbon tax if she topples Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives in the 2026 election.

“We will ensure major polluters pay, but we will not have an Ontario carbon tax on consumers,” Crombie said Monday as she announced a new panel to develop the party’s climate-change policies.

“Our climate action plan will … save families money. Let me be very clear, a carbon tax will not be part of my plan,” she said in a two-minute video filmed at Queen’s Park behind the legislature.

“Instead, I want robust action to build up public transit … invest in electric vehicle infrastructure; reform land-use planning to build livable, walkable communities; protect our water, sensitive land and nature; decarbonize our energy grid; support our farmers; and, most importantly, to find ways to help families save money by helping households become more energy efficient.”

Her pledge comes as Ford’s Tories have spent millions of dollars on an attack ad blitz charging the former Mississauga mayor and one-time Liberal MP is “the queen of the carbon tax.”

They are trying to negatively define the rookie leader, who was elected Dec. 2, and tie her to a policy that has hurt Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal Liberals in public opinion polls.

Asked whether the Tories’ ad campaign forced Crombie to act, Finance Minister Peter Bethlenfalvy insisted the Liberal leader has only gone halfway.

“What’s her position on the federal carbon tax that the federal Liberal government is imposing on people?” said Bethlenfalvy.

Energy Minister Todd Smith said “it would be very, very meaningful if Bonnie Crombie … came out and joined the PCs in Ontario — joined even Liberal and NDP voices from across the country — in saying no and asking Justin Trudeau to put a pause on the federal carbon tax.”

While Ford opposes the federal tax — he challenged the measure all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada where he and other premiers lost in 2021 — he has embraced other forms of carbon pricing.

In 2022, his government introduced the emission performance standards program that targets industrial polluters and last year it launched the clean energy credit registry cap-and-trade system.

Ontarians were exempt from paying the federal levy until Ford withdrew the province from the Western Climate Initiative in 2018. Under that cap-and-trade alliance with Quebec and California, billions of dollars flowed into the Ontario treasury to be used for greenhouse-gas reduction efforts like public transit, electric vehicle infrastructure and conservation initiatives.

“This Conservative government has taken us backwards. They have no plan to fight climate change and have made things even worse,” Crombie said.

Now, Ontario residents — unlike Quebecers and British Columbians, whose provinces have their own carbon-pricing schemes — must pay the federal tax, which is rising from $65 a tonne of carbon to $80 on April 1.

Cash rebates from Ottawa to consumers to offset the hike will also increase that day. Trudeau maintains that eight out of 10 Canadians receive more back than they pay out in higher fuel taxes, but recent polls suggest that message is not getting through.

Federal Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, who is holding “Axe the Tax” rallies across the country, has surged in every public opinion survey with an election expected in October 2025.

While Ford’s Tories are politically closer to Trudeau’s Liberals than to Poilievre — co-operating on massive investments to EV manufacturing, among other things — they believe Crombie’s popularity is being dragged down by the Grit brand.

That has forced the provincial Liberals to try to differentiate themselves from the struggling federal party.

To that end, Crombie has struck a six-person panel chaired by MPP Mary-Margaret McMahon (Beaches—East York) to steer a grassroots process on developing climate change policies.

Also on the committee are former provincial environment minister Chris Ballard; former agriculture minister Carol Mitchell; prominent environmentalist Cherise Burda of Toronto Metropolitan University; Kathryn Bakos, managing director of finance and resilience at the Intact Centre on Climate Adaption; and business leader Vince Gasparro, who has represented Canada as a delegate at the past three United Nations climate change summits.

Crombie also said the party would hold a “thinkers’ conference,” apparently modelled on the 2001 Niagara-on-the-Lake event held by then-leader Dalton McGuinty.

‘‘ We will ensure major polluters pay, but we will not have an Ontario carbon tax on consumers. BONNIE CROMBIE ONTARIO LIBERAL PARTY LEADER