Doug Ford is the premier who cried carbon-tax wolf.

His dire warnings this week that the impending federal tax on carbon-based fuels will lead to a nationwide recession set hearts pounding across Canada.

But since it turns out there's not a shred of evidence to back up his inflammatory claim, everyone should breathe easy, move on and, in future, discount Ford as an untrustworthy guard against danger. Like the boy who said a wolf was coming when it wasn't, the premier's credibility is shot, at least on this very sensible tax.

There was, to be sure, a strange irony in the fact that Ford first paraded his economic illiteracy on Monday at the Economic Club of Canada, a place where informed minds surely knew better.

"The risk of a carbon tax recession is very, very real," Ford told his audience. "You can be for a carbon tax or for manufacturing jobs … But you can't be for both."

As it turns out you can. Starting in April, the Justin Trudeau Liberals will impose a $20-a-tonne carbon tax in every province that hasn't set up its own carbon-pricing system. Ontario is by far the biggest holdout in this regard. The tax will impact many areas but for most Ontarians it will be most obvious in a 4.42-cent-a-litre tax on gasoline at the pump.

Let's be honest here. Paying 4.42 cents more for each litre of gas is expected to cost the average family $244 a year. There's no way that will result in major consumer spending cuts and a contraction in the overall economy. Nor is the tax some nasty Goliath that will squash Ontario's industries.

Ford conveniently ignores the fact that the carbon tax has been designed to be revenue neutral for most of us. After the tax comes in, Ontario households will receive annual rebate cheques worth an average of $300 which will exceed the amount of carbon tax they paid. There's also assistance for businesses, too.

Ford has already axed a fuel tax from Ontario's previous Liberal government that was roughly the size of the one Trudeau's imposing. No one suggests that cut pushed our economy into overdrive; so why should the new tax unleash economic calamity?

It won't. Residents of British Columbia have paid a bigger carbon tax on gasoline for more than a decade. Their province's economy is one of the strongest in Canada.

We'd urge Ford, and anyone who shares his worries, to listen to the former United States Federal Reserve Board chairs, former presidential advisers and highly respected economists — 27 with Nobel prizes in economics to their credit — who last week stated in the Wall Street Journal that a carbon tax was the most economically sound way to combat climate change because it relies on market forces to change people's behaviour.

They not only agreed that action must be taken to prevent climate change from ravaging the planet but that a carbon tax is far more efficient and transparent than enacting a slew of new regulations for industries — which is essentially Ford's current plan.

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The best Ford could do to support his fear-mongering was cite a Conference Board of Canada report that said a carbon tax could reduce Canada's economy by $3 billion a year. But that's a drop in Canada's annual $2.2-trillion gross-domestic-product bucket — just 0.14 per cent — and the conference board never warned it would cause a recession.

Whatever's debatable about Ottawa's carbon tax, it won't damage Canada's economy or way of life. Climate change will. Ford should admit this and stop calling out phantom wolves.

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