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TORONTO — Ontario’s fiscal watchdog said Tuesday it will examine the new Progressive Conservative government’s cancellation of the cap-and-trade program in order to determine how much that decision will end up costing the province.

Financial Accountability Officer Peter Weltman said the work on the review, which was requested by Opposition Leader Andrea Horwath, was already underway.

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“There are some key considerations with cap-and-trade,” Weltman said. “We need to get more detail from the government as to how they intend to manage those considerations.”

Weltman said the review will not focus on the environmental impacts of cancelling cap and trade, but will look solely at the fiscal implications of the decision, such as the cancellation costs related to the $3 billion in permits businesses have purchased since the Liberals introduced the system in 2017.

“There will be no more auctions so there’ll be no more revenue,” Weltman said. “On the spending side, how many of those spending programs have stopped or will stop or might stop? We need to get more detail on that before we can put together a fulsome analysis.”