Kathleen Wynne is making her move.

The premier insists she had no choice. Nor, she suggests, do Ontarians.

After years of delay and dithering, it’s decision time:

On Monday, the province will proclaim that it’s putting a price on carbon.

Wynne will kick off a flurry of announcements and pronouncements on pollution in Toronto, then push off for a signing ceremony with Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard later in the day.

Her government’s recognition, belatedly, that it cannot stand on the sidelines forever comes just in time for a summit of premiers hosted by Couillard on Tuesday. In Quebec City, Ontario and the other provinces will sit down to assess the rising role of sub-national governments in the local fight against global warming.

By signing a letter of intent, Wynne will declare that Ontario is following Quebec’s lead on “cap and trade” — a system of “capping” overall greenhouse gas emissions as polluters engage in “trading” (buying and selling) their allotted emissions to achieve the overall goal.

“On the climate change issue, we have to move on this front; I see no option,” Wynne said in an interview Friday.

Otherwise, other provinces — and other countries — will leave us in the dust as a polluting economy while rivals go green.

“We have to seize this moment,” Wynne argues. “There’s a widespread understanding that we are in trouble as a planet and that everyone who has a role should take on that role.”

Not so fast. Everyone tells pollsters they’re opposed to global warming, but few are predisposed to pay a price for pollution, whether for public power plants or private vehicles.

A decade ago, Ontario was ahead of its time, leading the way with an ambitious commitment to phase out coal-fired power plants. But it got little credit for achieving that goal a year ago; the Liberals were reduced to selling it as a way to relieve asthma, not reduce carbon.

Along the way, former premier Dalton McGuinty got cold feet over global warming. After watching the federal Liberals stumble over a proposed carbon tax in the 2008 election, McGuinty stalled on a commitment to move forward with the Western Climate Initiative, a group of provinces and American states spearheaded by California, Quebec and B.C.

Now Wynne is making up for lost time. She is painfully aware of the political perils, but will warn Ontarians of the environmental and economic risks of inaction.

“Not doing anything is costing us billions of dollars a year. … The cost now of not having a carbon pricing regime in place, the future costs in terms of the environment — so the cost to people, the cost to the environment, and the cost to the economy — we have to lead with those motivations,” the premier argues.

“And then we have to explain to people how what we’re going to do is going to change behaviours. And that it’s going to have a minimal impact on their pocketbooks, but there will be a disproportionately positive impact on the future and even the short- and mid-term economic growth.”

Wynne’s optimism belies the political sales job she faces at home. In the legislature, the Progressive Conservatives have maintained steady opposition to any form of carbon pricing, whether a straight tax (as implemented by B.C.’s right-leaning government several years ago) or a less visible cap-and-trade policy adopted in Quebec (by then premier Jean Charest, a former federal Tory).

She notes that even Alberta’s Progressive Conservatives have embraced carbon pricing (albeit at a low rate), and argues that its new premier, Jim Prentice, is “very, very eager to do something.”

Wynne bemoans the lack of federal leadership from Prime Minister Stephen Harper, but stresses that the provinces are well positioned to act because of their ability to tailor their own programs to suit local economic circumstances.

“In each province, it will look different,” she says. “It would be great if we had a federal government that would put a framework in place, that would support what the provinces are doing. But even without that, we can take action.”

Economic circumstances are not the only differences among the provinces. Political cultures can also be distinct, notably in B.C. and Quebec, where support for carbon pricing seems highest — among both politicians and the public.

When Couillard last met Wynne in Toronto last November to compare notes on Quebec’s experience with cap and trade, she faced tough questions from local reporters about the cost to consumers. Couillard took the microphone to cite the costs of doing nothing.

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Wynne took encouragement from Couillard’s support back then. It’s an example of “emboldening each other,” she says now.

“It helps us to be able to point at Quebec and say, ‘Look at what they are doing — look at how far they have gone.’ We can do that. If Quebec can do that, we can do that.”

As Wynne travels to Quebec, she can expect moral support from her fellow travellers, the provincial premiers. Whether that translates into support on the ground upon her return home depends as much on Ontario’s overheated political environment as on the pace of global warming.

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