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The Conservatives have made clear their preferred ballot question in the 2019 election — the cost to the average family of Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax.

They filibustered all night last Thursday to highlight their point that finance minister Bill Morneau won’t release that figure, despite having the analysis to hand. Meanwhile, the Conservative Party’s Twitter account has featured a picture of a gas pump sent in by one partisan. “Thank you @CPC_HQ for standing up for our family and working all night. I can’t live like this. $94.68. This is one fill-up for my minivan,” it read.

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tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or John Ivison: The carbon tax could be the ballot question in the 2019 federal election Back to video

Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives have been emboldened by Doug Ford’s victory in Ontario — interpreting the provincial vote as an explicit rejection of the carbon tax, which it may or may not be.

Ford’s declaration that the province’s cap-and-trade system is dead, part of his promise to cut four-and-a-half cents from the price of a litre of gasoline, has raised a number of questions about what comes next, not least of which is: who is going to compensate the companies that in good faith bought nearly $3 billion of emissions credits? The process of leaving the Western Climate Initiative, set up with California and Quebec, is going to be messy and costly.