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When the PCs’ former leader Patrick Brown announced that he would support a so-called “revenue-neutral” carbon tax, it was without any consultation with grassroots party members. Instead, it was a plan concocted by backroom players who were somehow convinced that running on a pro-tax platform would make the PC party more electable.

With Brown gone, there is a chance for the PCs to dump the carbon-tax albatross and its expensive promises

Yet, the Brown carbon tax plan was unpopular with the PC base, and a poll last year found that voters were 58-per-cent less likely to support a candidate who supports a Brown-style direct carbon tax. This distaste was especially pronounced among PC and undecided voters. Hardly a winning strategy.

Continuing to promote the Brown fallacy of “revenue neutrality” will have devastating consequences for the PCs, and for Ontario. By 2022, a federal carbon tax will cost Ontario $5.1 billion per year, and there is no guarantee the money will be returned to the taxpayers who paid it.

The Trudeau government’s current carbon-tax plan does not require that money collected be given directly back to the provincial governments that do not have their own carbon tax. Instead, the federal government can provide rebates to prescribed individuals and corporations directly. This means an Ontario PC government may not have access to the federal carbon tax revenue if it repeals cap-and-trade and allows the federally imposed tax.

The old Brown election platform could not afford this. It was counting on the federal government imposing a carbon tax, and then providing those new billions in taxpayer money to the PCs to spend on their campaign promises. If the federal government spends that revenue, the PCs wouldn’t be able to pursue Brown’s promises, and they will have rolled over on the carbon tax for nothing.