It’s taken some time but Doug Ford’s government finally has a number on climate change that they really want to talk about: $264.

That’s what Ontario’s financial accountability officer says a typical household would have paid in additional costs next year had the provincial cap-and-trade program to fight climate change by putting a price on carbon remained in place.

Environment Minister Rod Phillips was quick to jump on the number. “That’s more money for families. We’ll talk about that all day,” he told the legislature.

But, as usual, there is far more here than can be summed up by the simplistic money-in-your-pocket slogans that Ford’s PCs like best. In fact, their misguided decision to axe the provincial program means Ontario families are now set to pay more under the federal backstop, and get less environmental benefit from it.

And that’s not all. In his review, released on Tuesday, financial watchdog Peter Weltman warned that ending cap-and-trade has dealt the provincial treasury a $3 billion blow over the next four years, which will have to be accounted for some other way. That’s funding for infrastructure projects gone up in smoke, as well as $600 million in costs to wind down cap-and-trade and $5 million in compensation.

Beyond that, Weltman noted, is the possibility of paying far more in compensation if lawsuits are filed in other jurisdictions — therefore not covered by Ontario’s impending law to protect itself from liability — and the likely loss of $420 million in federal funds earmarked for Ontario to help deliver on its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

And those are just the costs of ending cap-and-trade. It doesn’t begin to do anything to actually tackle climate change — the impacts and costs of which are greater and coming faster than expected as the entire world was warned just last week by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

While Ford and his environment minister may be keen to embrace short-term political gain by opposing carbon pricing plans without offering anything meaningful to replace them, it’s not a course any responsible government should take.

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That’s why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has vowed to implement a national carbon tax on any province without a suitable plan of its own. And why, according to Weltman, that Ontario households will now pay much more than they would have under the provincial plan that Ford cancelled.

Next year the programs would have been about even — $258 under Ottawa’s carbon tax versus $264 under Ontario’s cap-and-trade — but costs rise more sharply under the federal plan and by 2022 Ontario households will face an extra $648 under the federal plan versus $312 under the old provincial one, Weltman states.

And since we don’t yet know how Ottawa intends to use that money — rebating it directly to citizens or handing it over to the province to spend however it sees fit — there’s no guarantee that any of those funds will be invested in environmental programs to help households and businesses reduce their carbon footprint.

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So, really, the best assessment of what Ford’s government has done comes not from environment minister Phillips but from the NDP critic Peter Tabuns: “Ford is hurting Ontario’s environment, and he’s charging all Ontarians extra to do it.”

It’s hard to argue with that.

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