Premier Doug Ford will hose gasoline stations with fines of up to $10,000 a day unless they slap oversized Ontario government stickers on pumps warning about the cost of federal carbon-pricing measures.

The hefty cash penalties were buried in the 283-page budget bill tabled Thursday by Finance Minister Vic Fedeli when he unveiled the Progressive Conservatives’ record $163.4-billion spending plan.

“We will be doing everything we can, including through the court system to fight this job-killing carbon tax. We will be putting stickers on gas pumps that show just how much Justin Trudeau is taking out of your pocket,” Fedeli said Friday in Ajax.

The 15 cm by 20 cm Tory blue stickers read: “The federal carbon tax will cost you.”

But it will be gas station owners facing sticker shock at the pumps if they refuse to post them.

For an independent operator, a first offence will lead to a daily fine of up to $500, rising to as much as $1,000 a day until the stickers are posted.

Corporate-owned stations would face initial fines of up to $5,000 a day, jumping to as much as $10,000 daily for subsequent breaches.

It’s estimated there are some 30,000 individual pumps in the province that would require a sticker.

In an email, the Canadian Fuels Association, which represents the industry, said it would “not be commenting at this time.”

The Tories are still determining how much the sticker program would cost taxpayers. Ford’s office emphasized the stickers will not be produced by the premier’s family’s label company.

Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna said “Ford is wasting taxpayers’ dollars misleading Ontarians about our plan.”

“The premier will be wasting money on stickers that do not include the amount of money Ontarians are getting back from the Climate Action Incentive rebate, and the cost of inaction on climate change,” said McKenna, dismissing the decals as “misleading political propaganda.”

NDP MPP Peter Tabuns (Toronto Danforth) panned the decals as “inaccurate and biased” because they do not include complete information about carbon pricing.

“From sticking his slogan and party colours on licence plates, to threatening gas stations that fail to carry Conservative party advertisements, Doug Ford is spending a lot of people’s money on himself and his party,” said Tabuns.

In a message emailed to Tory supporters Thursday, Ford hailed his first budget.

“The McGuinty-Wynne days of high taxes and endless deficits are officially over,” the premier said, referring to his Liberal predecessors, Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne.

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But by comparison, last year’s Liberal document was a $158.5-billion budget, meaning the Tories are spending $4.9 billion more than their predecessors.

That’s in part due to accounting changes the new government adopted last fall that make the fiscal situation appear more dire than it actually is.

Robert Benzie breaks down the highlights from the Ontario 2019 budget.

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Reversing a trend that dates back to when Tory Mike Harris was premier in 2001-02, the province no longer counts as assets $11 billion in government co-sponsored Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union Pension Plan and the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

That accounting revision — and a decision to move hydro subsidies for electricity customers off the rate base and onto the province’s books — increases the annual shortfall by about $5 billion.

The budget has a $10.3 billion shortfall with no plan to balance until 2023-24, after the next election. That means adding tens of billions of dollars to the $343 billion debt before beginning any repayment.

Fedeli made no apologies for using the revised accounting or for the inflated deficit figure.

“The Liberals never included the hydro scandal that they were involved in and the pension fund,” he said, referring to the electricity rebates and the public pension holdings.

“We are acknowledging the auditor general’s numbers and adding $5 billion that the Liberals never included.”

Robert Benzie is the Star’s Queen’s Park bureau chief and a reporter covering Ontario politics. Follow him on Twitter: @robertbenzie

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