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Voters know there is no such thing as a free lunch — but that doesn’t stop them wanting one.

Andrew Scheer’s climate plan plays on such grasping delusions — claiming to meet Canada’s Paris emissions targets at little or no cost.

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But a new assessment of the plan suggests the benign promise of achieving emissions reductions “without making the lives of Canadians harder or more expensive” is a chimera.

The study by EnviroEconomics and Canadians for Clean Prosperity says the Conservative plan will send Canada’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into reverse and cost the average household in provinces covered by the federal carbon-tax backstop an extra $295 a year by 2022. In B.C., Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador, provinces not covered by the backstop, the cost would be lower at $187.

The new report says the effect of killing the carbon tax and the government’s clean fuel standard would add a net 9.1 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2022, even after the plan’s Green Homes renovation tax credit and the Green Technology and Innovation Fund are taken into account.