Provincial auditor general Bonnie Lysyk is giving a thumbs-down to Premier Doug Ford’s new taxpayer-funded TV commercial that attacks the federal government’s carbon-pricing measures.

The fiscal watchdog’s office said Monday the ad “would not have passed the auditor general’s review under the former version of the Government Advertising Act because it doesn’t include all the relevant facts.”

Furthermore, “it criticizes another level of government while putting the Ontario government in a positive light,” said Christine Pedias, Lysyk’s director of corporate communications and government advertising review.

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Until former premier Kathleen Wynne loosened the legislation four years ago, the auditor general had a veto over government advertising for factual accuracy, context and tone, to determine whether it was politically partisan.

While the Progressive Conservatives promised in opposition to beef-up the law by reinstating those powers, they have done little on that front since taking power last June.

“There have been no updates,” said Pedias.

“Last we heard was the response the government gave to our recommendation that the previous version of the act be restored in our 2018 annual report. The response was: ‘The government will endeavour to explore options for the review of government advertising ...’” she added.

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Lysyk, who frequently sparred with the previous Liberal government, said in her December report that “the previous version of the Government Advertising Act, 2004 as it appeared on June 3, 2015, (should) be reinstated.”

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Ford’s 30-second ad, unveiled Monday, is the latest salvo in his $30-million campaign against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon-pricing scheme.

It shows nickels pouring out of a gasoline nozzle, heating vents and supermarket shelves.

“You’re paying a nickel more per litre,” a female narrator says as a woman fills up her tank at a gas station.

“Then your heating bills are a few nickels higher. And food’s up a nickel or two. This will cost Ontario families $648 a year.”

But the ad does not note the federal tax rebates designed to offset higher fuel costs. For an Ontario family of four, the rebate will rise from $307 now to $718 a year by 2022. That’s a net annual gain of $70 per household.

The federal program, designed to curb greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to climate change, is being bankrolled by large industrial polluters.

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Environment Minister Rod Phillips noted Ottawa “is spending millions of dollars to promote their idea, which is that they are going to tax people ... and give some of them more money back.

“We don’t think that people trust governments to take more money from them and then give more money back,” said Phillips, whose PC government is challenging the constitutionality of the federal levy in court.

“We don’t think they can afford to wait for rebates,” he said.

But federal Minister Catherine McKenna told the Star the federal government would not be allowed to air such ads because of Trudeau’s crackdown on partisan ads.

“You shouldn’t use taxpayer dollars to lie to Canadians,” said McKenna.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who led a provincial debate on climate change Monday, said the PC government is “making a mockery” of a major issue.

“People expect all governments these days to take things like climate change seriously,” said Horwath.

“These partisan ads, particularly, are not helpful and they’re a waste of public money, which should be used on mitigating climate change as opposed to taking shots at other levels of government or other parties,” she said.

Green Leader Mike Schreiner said “those ads tell one-third of the story.

“They don’t talk about the cost of climate change ... $1.3 billion in Ontario in insurable losses last year, and they don’t tell the other third of the story, which is the rebate you’re getting back in your taxes, many of you in the next week or two,” said Schreiner.

In 2016, Lysyk publicly criticized Liberal government ads promoting Ontario’s cap-and-trade environmental alliance with Quebec and California, which Ford cancelled last summer.

The auditor expressed concern about an ad that featured environmentalist David Suzuki speaking to an auditorium of children, in which he told them that “if we don’t act now, the damage could be irreversible.

“Who will have to live with the consequences? You,” Suzuki said in his lecture.

Lysyk concluded the Liberal ad was designed “to create a positive impression of government.”

Her comments at the time inspired Tory MPP Sylvia Jones, now the solicitor general, to table a private member’s bill to revive the auditor’s powers.

NDP MPP Taras Natyshak (Essex) has reintroduced Jones’s bill — even using the same cover with her name scratched out and his inked in — to pressure the Tories into keeping their pledge.

The act was introduced 15 years ago by former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty, but Wynne loosened the restrictions in 2015.