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Canada was less than a month away from signing the Kyoto Protocol when opposition leader Preston Manning stood up in the House of Commons to accuse prime minister Jean Chrétien of trying to hoodwink Canadians with a gasoline tax.

In the fall of 1997, gasoline cost as little as 56¢ a litre in downtown Ottawa. If the “Liberal Kyoto deal” went through, warned Mr. Manning, fuel prices would skyrocket to the then-unbelievable sum of 90¢ a litre.

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“Do not run away, do not make excuses and do not change the subject: Will there be a jump at the pump to pay for the Kyoto deal?” he asked.

Less than 20 years later, Mr. Manning is spending his golden years as one of Canada’s leading proponents of putting a price on pollution — a strategy guaranteed to drive up fuel prices.

“If you value a healthy environment, somebody’s going to have to pay for it,” he told the National Post by phone. “It’s how you do it, not whether you have to do it.”