The Ontario Green Party is countering Premier Doug Ford's anti-carbon tax stickers with a sticker of its own. Part of the Green Party's sticker (pictured above) highlights the costs of climate change and will be made available to gas stations who wish to display it alongside the mandatory anti-carbon tax stickers from the Ford government. Source: Green Party of Ontario

TORONTO—Premier Doug Ford’s anti-carbon tax stickers got some competition Thursday with the release from the Ontario Green Party of counter-stickers that show the costs of climate change.

On April 8, the province announced it will require all gas stations to put stickers on gas pumps that show the extra costs the carbon tax adds to the price per litre of gas. The stickers don’t mention any other parts of the federal carbon tax program — like the rebate that most families will get to offset those costs.

[READ MORE: Ontario won’t reveal price of anti-carbon tax ads]

The province hasn’t said when the stickers will be in place but it says gas stations that fail to install the stickers will face fines of up to $10,000 per day.

On Thursday, Green Party Leader Mike Schreiner offered up alternative stickers for gas stations that want to provide customers with more information.

“The premier seems to be obsessed with stickers and I think it’s wrong that he’s not telling the full story,” Schreiner said in an interview with iPolitics. “Anybody who voluntarily wants to use them, they’re more than welcome to use them so people in Ontario have the full story of what the cost of the climate crisis will be.”

The stickers are virtually identical in theme, font and colour, to those made by the provincial government, but instead of highlighting the costs of the carbon tax, they highlight the costs associated with climate change.

“Climate change could cost us over $91 billion annually by 2050,” reads one bullet point on the sticker.

Schreiner said his party decided to offer up the stickers showing another side of the carbon tax/climate change story after requests for alternative stickers came into his office.

On top of the stickers, the government is also rolling out an ad campaign on radio, TV and online against the carbon tax. It has refused to release the costs of that ad campaign, but CTV reported it is a seven-figure media spend.

The province did not directly respond to the new stickers presented by the Green Party, and instead, in a statement doubled down on the reasons for its mandatory stickers that target the carbon tax.

“Our government will continue to hold the federal government accountable to the people of Ontario, and we will not stop promoting transparency for Ontario’s energy consumers,” said Energy Minister Greg Rickford said in a statement.

On April 16, Rickford said the stickers were being introduced to “stick it to the Liberals and remind the people of Ontario how much this job-killing regressive carbon tax costs.”

Since he ran for the Tory leadership more than a year ago, Ford has made his anti-carbon tax campaign a defining feature of his tenure in provincial politics. In government, he has repeatedly taken on the Trudeau Liberals over their imposition of a carbon tax and he’s joined by a growing contingent of provincial allies in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick.

Federal Environment Minister Catherine McKenna has called the stickers “misleading” and a waste of tax dollars.

Schreiner’s public relations gambit comes two days after lawyers for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association sent a letter to the province notifying it that it will challenge the law if the government passes it with the mandatory requirements in place. The Federal Carbon Tax Transparency Act is included in the government’s omnibus budget bill tabled on April 11.

Greenpeace has also said it will challenge the bill.

Last week, the Ontario Chamber of Commerce spoke out against the stickers, saying the government is getting rid of red tape, only to introduce more red tape.

“It is both a new administrative burden and an increased cost to business thanks to the punitive and out-sized fines for non-compliance,” the chamber’s president and CEO, Rocco Rossi, said in a letter to the government.

“Our members – including gas station operators – have expressed concerns regarding the political nature of the stickers, viewing them as a violation of their rights and freedoms,” he added.

In response to Rossi’s letter, Rickford slammed the chamber, suggesting it wasn’t standing up for small businesses and saying it supported a carbon tax.

While the @OntarioCofC might be okay with their members getting hit with a carbon tax, our government is supporting Ontario’s business community by opposing this tax on everything. We will not stand by and watch small businesses be burdened by this job-killing carbon tax. https://t.co/QKw7GW84Ke — Greg Rickford (@GregRickford) April 26, 2019



In a statement to iPolitics, Rossi said the chamber is “skeptical” about the “efficacy of the federal carbon tax” and believes it will have a “disproportionate impact on small businesses.”

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